Duplicate emails are those emails that appear repeatedly in Outlook PST files. A lot of confusion is created among users deciding; what to do with the email consisting of duplicates or where to find and remove duplicate emails in Outlook. You can see the below screenshot of duplicate email messages in Outlook.
Tips- If have several Outlook emails and want to merge and remove duplicate emails in Outlook 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007 and all below editions, you can use Merge PST Files software. This tool helps you to combine Outlook emails, contacts, calendars without duplicates.
Reasons Behind Duplicates Emails in Outlook
Many things can cause Outlook items to duplicate, but the most common reasons are discussed below:- Outlook’s email-related ‘Account Settings’ can cause emails to duplicate. If the ‘Leave Messages on the Server’ settings option activated it may result in multiple copies of messages being created.
- Synchronizing Outlook with other applications/devices (Phones, PDAs, etc.)
- Other Reasons: You may receive multiple copies of the same email from your friends or colleagues who may forward it to get your attention.
- Sometimes even your anti-virus software may also create duplicate e-mails.
Impact of Duplicate Emails in Outlook
The following consequences may be encountered if you do not remove duplicate emails in Outlook:- Outlook will start to slow down in performance. For example, if you want to find a particular message using the Instant Search feature of Outlook, but all that you see is "Searching". Moreover, you have to wait patiently while Outlook repeats the searching process through all email messages in a given folder including duplicated ones.
- In most of the systems, Outlook starts to slow down when the mailbox crosses its size limitation, and if you do not reduce the size of your mailbox containing Outlook data, your Outlook may start hanging, freezing and not responding.
4 Free Solutions to Remove Duplicate Emails in Outlook
1) Account Settings: Sometimes by mistake, when you attempt to configure Outlook PST files more than one time it may add many accounts to MS Outlook synchronizing same PST data for those files, which create duplicates in Outlook.Do the following steps to remove the duplicates in this case:
- Go to File >> Info >> click on Account Settings.
- You will see the Account Settings window. There in the E-mail tab, search the name of the account configured to Outlook. If the same account appears more than one time, then remove an extra account. To do that, drag your cursor, select the E-mail account, and click on Remove.
- After removing the duplicate account, click Close.
- Start Outlook and click on File >> select Open & Export >> click on Import/Export
- You will see Import and Export Wizard window, select an option Import from another program or file and click Next.
- You will see Import a file window, select Outlook Data File (.pst) and click Next.
- You will see Import Outlook Data File, browse the file to import and check Do not import duplicates and click Next.
- Finally, select Outlook Data File to export complete data or you can select the particular folders of ‘Outlook Data File’ after clicking on the selected folders >> click on Finish.
3) Modifying ‘View’ settings in Outlook to remove duplicate emails in Outlook
For Outlook 2002, Outlook 2003, and Outlook 2007:
- For Outlook 2002 and 2007, click on Current View under the View menu to change the option from folder view into a table type view.
- For Outlook 2003, under Arrange By option on the View menu, select and click on Current View to change the option from Folder View into a Table Type View.
- Right-click on the heading of the column (it’ll show some options) >> click on Field Chooser.
- A list will be displayed, click on All <item name> fields.
- Impediment the Modified field and drop it to the table heading.
- Justify that the duplicate items have a different date from the initial set of items. If it is different, click on Modified heading so that the items are ordered using this field.
- In the set click the first item that you wish to delete >> turn to the last item in the set that you need to delete.
- Click on Shift+Delete key to delete it permanently.
- In the Ribbon of Outlook click on View >> select Change View >> click on Preview to change the option from folder view into a table type view.
- Right-click on the heading of the column >> click on Field Chooser.
- From the Field Chooser, select the option All Mail fields.
- Impediment the Modified field into the table heading.
- Validate that the duplicate items have a different date from the initial set of items. If it is different, click on Modified heading.
- Click the first item in the set that you need to delete >> spin to the last item in the set that you prefer to delete.
- Press and hold the key SHIFT+DELETE and release them together to delete the duplicate items for permanent basis.
Clean Up Tool is a feature of Outlook that allows you to remove duplicate emails in Outlook. Below are the steps you need to follow:
- Open your MS Outlook >> click on Clean Up from the ribbon bar of Outlook window to expand all the options.
- After expanding three options will be given: “Clean Up Conversation”, “Clean Up Folders”, “Clean Up Folders & Subfolders” >> click on “Clean Up Folders & Sub folders” option.
- A box namely “Clean Up Folder” will pop up >> which will ask you whether to proceed the clean up or cancel? Click on “Clean Up Folder”.
- Another option that a “Clean Up Folder” show is “Settings”, click on “Settings” option to manually provide the location of deleted items folder (If you are using your own custom location to save deleted folder instead of default location).
- After clicking on “Settings” it will open “Outlook Options” window >> click on “Browse” to provide the location of PST file.
- A pop up will appear by name Select Folder (showing all the available folders in Outlook) >> click on Deleted Items >> click OK.
- At final, click on “Clean Up Folder”.
Failure of Manual Solution and Need of ODIR Download
- If you have a smaller sized PST file that consists of few hundred emails in your inbox or archive folders, then it may be possible that you never faced the problem of duplicate emails and this will hardly happen to you in the near future. However, the fact is that an average Outlook user receives around 50 to 100 messages a day.
- Therefore, most of the users have thousands or more emails stored in various folders and users may have no idea how many duplicated emails are actually present in their Outlook profile.
- Sometimes, a user may experience an error while using the Outlook's Clean Up Tool with the error message: "No messages were cleaned up. Only messages that satisfy your clean up settings will be moved to the trash folder."
