How to fix "Operation cannot be performed because message has been changed" message. when using Outlook and Gmail.

Anonymous
2020-04-21T11:53:43+00:00

Over the last two years, I have been using Outlook 2013, now Office 365. I've been experiencing an ongoing issue where I receive this message "Operation cannot be performed because message has been changed" message.  Typical scenarios: 1) A new email arrives in my Outlook inbox. I preview, or read the email. I attempt to delete the email. Operation cannot... message appears.  I either type a new email, or reply to an email, go on to another task leaving the draft until later. When I return to the draft email, complete the email, and attempt to send the email, Operation cannot... message appears. I also cannot even save the draft, same error message. This is the worst part of this bug, as I've wasted/lost the time effort spent on the draft email.

I have run the Office repair utilities. I have tried unchecking the email cleanup boxes, and a variety of fixes recommended on these Microsoft answers communities. I've noticed sometimes when I come back to a message, it does allow me to move/delete the message. It's like there's a sync issue that needs time to resolve. However, nothing appears to work when a draft message gets hung in this loop. I have to start over with a new reply email.

Outlook | Windows | Classic Outlook for Windows | For home

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

82 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2021-09-24T11:14:49+00:00

    I get this all the time when moving messages into folders. The work around is to go to the menu section 'Tags' at the top of the message and click on the 'Unread/Read' toggle twice in fairly quick succession (not a double-click). Sometimes it doesn't work first time, so try it again.

    So simple - takes about two seconds and then it will file. I have no idea why this works, perhaps it triggers some sort of server synchronisation by setting the message to unread and then setting it back again. Once both client and server are are synched - they do not think something has changed.

    Cheers,

    David Beare

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2021-08-18T05:04:51+00:00

    It happens to me in Outlook 2013.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2021-07-29T00:15:27+00:00

    Does anyone recognize how absurd it that community members have to fix a problem with Outlook? When does Microsoft assume responsibility for their product that us community members paid Microsoft for? Do we have to wait for Windows 11? I'm sure the car manufacturers would love to convince their buyers "you figure out how to fix our product"

    *** Email address is removed for privacy ***

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2021-07-28T22:08:24+00:00

    This is the most annoying error message of all that I have ever received, and it seems like it should be simple to fix. All users want to do is clean up their inboxes. Why should it be this hard? Why?

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2021-07-11T11:10:26+00:00

    This works perfectly and is simple enough as this error does not take place all the time.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments