Outlook.com prompts to Enter a new folder name, when I click on "Move to", then "Move to a different folder"

Anonymous
2023-10-23T00:28:36+00:00

I have always been accustomed to clicking on the Move To button, then unless the folder I want to move to appears on the history list of the last 8 or so folder names, I click on Move to a different folder.

This has STOPPED working. When I click on Move to a different folder, the cursor moves to a blank field associated with the Create a new folder option just above Move to a different folder, and prompts me to "Enter new folder name". I definitely made sure I did not select Create a new folder; I selected Move to a different folder. This cursor movement to this other field and corresponding prompt to Enter new folder name is an error. I first noticed this maybe about a week ago.

When I click on Move to a different folder, it should and it used to pop up with a list of all of my folders, to scroll down the list and choose the folder to move to.

The problem happens on either Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome, when logged in to my paid hotmail.com account aka Outlook.com account. This is not relevant but I have used the account for more than 20 years. The problem also occurs whether I have an email open, i.e. am reading it, and make the selection to Move to a different folder, or if I am looking at the list of emails in my Inbox, and tick the box next to an email, then from the menu I select Move to, then Move to a different folder. In both cases and on either browser, the cursor moves to the field for Create a new folder just above Move to a different folder, and prompts me to Enter new folder name. It behaves as if I clicked on Create a new folder which that option is just above the Move to a different folder menu selection. But clearly I did not choose Create a new folder.

This happens on every PC I use both at home and at work, Chrome or Edge, Windows 10 Pro or Windows 11 Pro. I could only choose Outlook from the list of Products. This is not Outlook email client included with MS Office. This is outlook.live.com web based email.

Something is quite obviously broken. Thanks in advance for any help.

Outlook | Windows | Classic Outlook for Windows | For business

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-10-24T00:52:25+00:00

    Sorry I was busy at work all day and then had some work to do when I got home.

    Just to follow up to your most recent reply to me and the questions included in it, if I select a folder from the history of previously selected folders, it immediately moves the email to that folder in normal fashion.

    If I click on the field "Search for a folder", it does search as I type and when it finds a match it populates the name of that folder just below the Search for a Folder field. If I then click on that name of the matching folder, it moves the email to that folder, so that function is also working. I never use that, I always click on Move to a different folder and then select from the list. In the future I may use that Search for a folder option, at least sometimes. But of course I/we still need the Move to a Different Folder functionality fixed. Thanks.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-10-26T03:19:45+00:00

    Very interesting; well, perhaps not to you. :-)

    I am curious, has there been any change to your system recently, prior to Outlook.com's Move to folder functionality going from normal to being broken? When I say "any change", I mean literally anything, has any event or update occurred, any closing of a program that normally stays open, shutting down or signing out or restarting Windows, Windows Updates, web browser update, anything at all that may possibly coincide with this change in functionality of the Move to folder feature?

    One would think that something had to change, a version update to a web browser, Windows updates, something that one wouldn't give a second thought to. For my part, I don't recall exactly when the change started. I can't relate it to anything because I'm not exactly sure when it started. I just remember thinking when I noticed it, that's weird. I am sure that after I noticed it, I refreshed the browser page, closed the tab with Outlook.com open on it, then opened a new tab and went back to Outlook.com, then closed the browser completely and reopened it, none of which helped of course.

    My Chrome browser has been updated recently, but I have no way of knowing if that is related. But I also tried the same test on the Edge browser, and I didn't see Edge prompt me that it needed to be updated, like Chrome does when it displays a Restart to update button or Relaunch to update (I forget which) in the upper right corner of the browser.

    This is very puzzling.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-10-23T13:35:14+00:00

    Thanks for the screenshot. I'll ask my contacts on the product team about it. If you select the folder from the list or click in the search field at the top, does it work or does it jump back to the new folder field?

    Steve: do you have the "Search for a folder" at the top of the move to list? (It's in my screenshot and Tom's) Try typing the folder name instead of using Move to different folder command.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-10-23T10:20:02+00:00

    Dear Diane, This is Steve in Hawaii and I originally reported the failure of the button "Move to another folder" a couple of days ago and then discovered Tom McMillion in the thread above has also reported exactly the same failure. I'm using the same Outlook I've used since it replaced Hotmail. I don't know how to take a screenshot for you, but my version of Outlook provides no lists as you're displaying - 2 columns with the first showing 13 choices and listing Delete, Archive, Move, et al, and the second column also displaying 13 choices beginning with "Search for a folder", and #13 as "Move to a different folder". My Outlook displays no such lists in that format. It has a blue stripe across the top of the page with "Outlook" in white letters at the far left, with a Search Box to it's immediate right, and then 9 tiny icons at the far right in that blue bar - none of which are involved in this issue. The row immediately below has 3 tabs labelled Home, View and Help. In this instance the page is in the "Home" mode - which determines which tabs on the row below are active and which are "greyed out". In that row next below are 15 tabs, 6 "greyed out" and 9 active - the 4th one is "Move to" - designed specifically to move the e-mail on that page from its current location in a folder to another more suitable folder. Clicking on that tab opens a menu displaying a Search Bar at the top, and listed under that are the Folder names of the 8 most recent choices, followed below by a tab labelled "Create New Folder" and the word "Save" greyed out, followed lastly by a tab labelled "Move to a Different Folder ... ". Clicking on any one of the 8 most recently selected folders has always result in the e-mail in question being immediately moved into that folder, but if the desired folder is not among those 8 offered, then the appropriate action is to click on the "Move to a Different Folder" tab, whereupon a window opens displaying all of the folders in that account and the appropriate action is to scroll down and click on the desired folder, which normally, and for many years past, has resulted in that e-mail immediately being moved from its current folder into the selected one. Now the program has suddenly (within the past 2 days) not moved the e-mail and INSTEAD caused the tab immediately above, labelled "Create New Folder", to change to read "New Folder Name" in italics with a blinking cursor poised at the first word ready to receive the New Name - which is the entirely wrong response to the desired action of moving the e-mail to a different folder just selected by the user. This evening as a test, I had a good friend who's been an Outlook user for years, open her account and discovered her computer, unbeknownst to her, behaving in the same wrong way. I think it unreasonable to assume our 3 different computers suddenly and simultaneously were corrupted in exactly the same way. So I believe the corruption is spreading widely and the unsuspecting users need to have an Alert proclaimed to all by Microsoft's supporting structure and the fix needs to be passed on to all the users of Outlook in an Update to the program, not just those who have turned to you for help, just as Tom McMillion also opined above.

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-10-23T03:38:08+00:00

    Hi, I'm Diane and I'm happy to help you today.

    Does the first box say to create a folder or is it search for a folder? In my Outlook on the web, the top field is a search box - so you don't need to use move to different folder - if you don't see the folder you want in the list, start typing the name.

    If your screenshot does not look mine (ignoring the folder names) please post a screenshot and I will ask my contacts in support about it. (The second entry in my screenshot is a folder named New Folder, not a link to create a new folder.)

    https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/23ff089d-634c-4c63-8449-021c3efc9b06?platform=QnA

    Let us know how it goes, we're here to help you further if needed.

    -- Diane

    Give back to the community. Help the next person with this problem by indicating whether this answer solved your problem. Click Yes or No at the bottom.

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