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

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-05-26T15:20:26+00:00

    From Bruce Mundy

    Dear People;

    Here's my workaround for when I receive a message,  and in some mysterious way changed the message I do the following:

    1) Right-click message and change message back to "Unread".

    2) Do a "Send/Receive" all folders.

    3) Do a drag and drop to folder.

    Bruce, that sounds like it might work.  But I must now confess I am tired of this.  After following this thread and experimenting for several years (WITHOUT MICROSOFT ONCE CHIMING IN) I have since abandoned working in Outlook, instead writing, reading and saving emails direct in my service providers native Web Client (Comcast and GMail).  I keep Outlook around for doing email searches and when I want to edit SUBJECT lines should I want future search clarity (which I do not do much).  Otherwise it is just as easy to work in the Web platforms,  If it were not for needing Excel, I would dump Microsoft altogether for personal home use. I am looking into a replacement for spreadsheets.

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-05-25T16:38:14+00:00

    Dear People;

    Here's my workaround for when I receive a message,  and in some mysterious way changed the message I do the following:

    1) Right-click message and change message back to "Unread".

    2) Do a "Send/Receive" all folders.

    3) Do a drag and drop to folder.

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-05-04T13:25:27+00:00

    That is surely to do with a message  you have written ready to send not an incoming message, in the "INBOX",  that you just looked at, changed in some way by maybe downloading images,  and then when yoiu come to close it you cannot save the changes without getting past a n idiotic message that should not happen - i.e.  a fault in Outlook of some sort that is now on the 7th page of discusion without being fixed.

    If the above IS a cure - its another fault because why would a message in the Inbox get saved to Drafts, its an optyionhaving an effect in an area it should not affect.

    "if the above IS a cure" . . . nothing above?

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  4. Anonymous
    2021-05-04T08:13:04+00:00

    That is surely to do with a message  you have written ready to send not an incoming message, in the "INBOX",  that you just looked at, changed in some way by maybe downloading images,  and then when yoiu come to close it you cannot save the changes without getting past a n idiotic message that should not happen - i.e.  a fault in Outlook of some sort that is now on the 7th page of discusion without being fixed.

    If the above IS a cure - its another fault because why would a message in the Inbox get saved to Drafts, its an optyionhaving an effect in an area it should not affect.

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  5. Anonymous
    2021-05-04T05:36:10+00:00

    i found this to solve the problem 

    1. In Outlook, select the “File” menu, then choose “Options“.
    2. Select “Mail” on the left pane.
    3. UNCheck the “Automatically save items that have not been sent after this many minutes:” . Uncheck it to disable it. You may optionally want to change the amount of minutes or the folder the drafts are saved to within this same setting.

    This should fix the problem.

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