Why are emails in our shared mailbox being auto-tagged and moved?
Asked by
CuriousCat42
We've been receiving complaints from users accessing a shared mailbox about emails being automatically tagged and moved around. This situation has caused quite a bit of confusion, and we're trying to identify the root cause of this issue. The users are convinced that AI is responsible for the behavior. Can anyone offer suggestions on how to investigate this and stop the auto tagging? Googling and using Copilot haven't provided much insight so far.
Answers
Most times, if emails are auto-tagging or moving unexpectedly, it usually comes from rules, Quick Steps, add-ins, or Focused Inbox settings. You should check for:
- Inbox rules for the shared mailbox
- Any Quick Steps that might be categorizing or moving emails
- Installed Outlook add-ins that interact with emails
- The settings for Focused Inbox or Clutter
Once you verify those, you should be able to stop the unwanted behavior pretty easily.
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Have you taken a look at the Outlook rules associated with the shared mailbox? There could be some rules that are moving or tagging emails without you realizing. What kind of troubleshooting have you conducted so far?
CuriousCat42: I've looked at the shared mailbox, and surprisingly, no rules are set up there. I also checked the user's inbox who is seeing the auto tagging, and they don't have any rules either. It’s tough because there are so many users involved—it’s hard to track everything.
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It's worth enabling advanced auditing on those mailboxes and then looking into the audit logs. This might give you more insight into what’s happening.
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This issue is often the result of a 'client-only' rule that a user may have forgotten about on their local Outlook application. You would need to check each machine individually since server-side commands won’t reveal these rules.
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CuriousCat42: That's a good point! We suspect one user may have a conversation view turned on, which seems to auto-tag all emails in the same thread.