e-mail missing and automatically deleted

e-mail automatically deleted - Outlook 2010

Outlook 2010, Exchange 2007 SP3, Samsung S3 Andriod KitKat (4.4)


Today a strange scenario happened. I was on my way into the office and checking my e-mail while driving (not preferred). I noticed a few important e-mails from a particular sender that I need to address. The e-mail in question were mixed in with other lesser important e-mails. I will reply to the e-mail from my desk PC.

 

I get to my desk and open Outlook. NONE of the e-mail, all from one sender, are in the Inbox. Weird. I look down at my phone and POOF - the e-mail are gone from the Inbox on my phone. Again all of the e-mail in question is from one particular sender, no other e-mail is affected.

 

I search the junk e-mail, find nothing. I look in the "Deleted Items" and whamo my missing e-mail is there.

 

• I suspected rules in Outlook. I disabled all the rules in outlook, had the sender re-send the e-mail. Straight to deleted again.
• Next I suspected rules in OWA - disabled, same result
• Junk mail filter? This was not even a possibility for me because the sender was internal to my organization (and in the same domain). Additionally my junk e-mail options were not set to "permanently delete...instead of moving to the junk e-mail folder". See image 1.

Permanently delete suspected - NOT CHECKED. Doesn't matter because internal
senders are not processed by the junk e-mail filter.



• Spam filter? Again, not possible because the sender is internal. My spam filtering is done at the gateway therefore internal messages don't hit the spam filter. BTW, I am using SpamTitan - not the best, but it works.

I was just about to delve in to the transport logs and message tracking logs but I know that this will not be fruitful because, remember, I received the e-mail on my phone, and subsequently to my "deleted items", which means the e-mail was delivered. The e-mail in question only moved to deleted AFTER I opened Outlook. Something on the client, other than Junk E-mail filter and "rules" was processing the message.


After reviewing the e-mail in my deleted items, I found this gem "Ignore Conversation".





I never ever use the Ignore feature. I get it but I just don't have a need for it. Somehow this got enabled for this message. I probably pulled an end user maneuver and clicked on it instead of clicking delete. Here comes the big punch line. I never clicked on Ignore on this e-mail. Outlook thinks all messages with the SAME SENDER and the SAME SUBJECT LINE are part of the SAME CONVERSATION - even though we know this not the case. For example, if your co-worker Bill sends you a weekly e-mail, with the subject line "For your review", Outlook treats ALL of the messages as one conversation.

• Unchecking Ignore move ALL of the messages from that sender w/ the same subject line back to the Inbox.

Thanks for listening.