This browser is no longer supported.
Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
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.
Using Classic Outlook on Windows for personal email, calendar, and contact management
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.
Why doesn't MS just fix this issue, rather than offering excuses and workarounds?
This was not a problem for me until moving to MS 365. No issue with Office 2013, 2010, so can't be that difficult to fix.
I will just get at the back of the line, too. I tried all of this stuff many times to no avail.
Microsoft should just FIX THIS!!!!!!
I do my part and pay my subscription every year. I could not even move the G*D D*mn Subscription Paid Confirmation email into a "RECEIPTS" folder..., because "Cannot perform this operation because this message has changed".
I get the message when I'm trying to move messages to a folder, so my INBOX is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I can't move half of the messages out of the INBOX because "SOMETHING HAS CHANGED" and forget about trying to send a message from Drafts. The problem is getting worse over the past week. It's now happening on a frequent, regular basis. I've never had this much trouble with Outlook. ****!!
What other recourse do we have than talking to ourselves on this useless Community of irate Microsoft users?? Don't they realize our livelihoods depend on their stuff working? We don't do this stuff for fun. All of us are WAITING for a solution. Where do the people from Microsoft who would know how to fix this problem hide? There are obviously people from Microsoft who know how to make the problem worse, available to answer our questions. How can we make them listen to us, instead of just notifying us when our subscription has been renewed?
Notice they don't ask you before charging you if you have any problems you would like fixed!! That would be a novel idea, but would probably put them out of business.
Susan
Outlook user since it was created and launched (1980's?, 1970's?, 1960's?)
Worked perfect for a series of appointments as well on calander. Thanks
This answer has been deleted due to a violation of our Code of Conduct. The answer was manually reported or identified through automated detection before action was taken. Please refer to our Code of Conduct for more information.
Comments have been turned off. Learn more