How to stop delete key from deleting the entire email in outlook?

My outlook is now working properly. I am using Outlook 2016 on Windows 11. When I press the DEL key the deleted email goes into the Trash folder now. Wonderful! But the embarrassing thing is, I don't know what I changed. :( This was fixed in the email settings as I was fooling around with them, but I don't know which change fixed it. And I know this is useless to anyone reading this but I can at least give you a clue that somewhere in the settings something did solve this delete problem, at least in Outlook 2016.

A couple of other clues are that I am using Windows 11 and I believe I also installed the new outlook (in Feb 2025) (the free version for windows) so maybe that repaired something too that affected Outlook 2016, I just don't know.

Sorry for the stupidity of this post....

This issue remains unsolved and is quite serious!!

After none of the solutions in this thread worked for me, I found a workaround using an external program (AutoHotkey). I set it up to neutralize the "Del" key whenever Outlook is active.

It effectively prevents accidental email deletions. The only minor tradeoff is that I now rely on Backspace for character deletion — a small price to pay for safeguarding my inbox.

#IfWinActive Inbox          ; Put the correct Title in your Language here 

Del:: 

{ 

	; do nothing or give an ErrorMsg e.g. by "MsgBox, Deletion not possible"

} 

#IfWinActive

I am using the Logitech K650 Bluetooth keyboard and having the same issue. when pressing the delete button to remove the writing, it deletes the whole email and sent to the deleted items. I tried file - option - advanced - reading pane - unlclicking but it did not work.

This also worked for me! Thanks!

This does work, you just have to close Outlook and reopen it to get the changes to take work.