Unexpected change of the order of the folders in my navigation pane

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TonyC

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Outlook 2021 64 bit
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POP3
A strange thing happened yesterday while I was using Outlook 2013.

Most of the time, I work with all my folders listed in the navigation pane. The normal order of these folders is Inbox, Drafts, Sent Items, Deleted Items, and these are then followed by my personal folders in alphabetical order.

Yesterday, I dragged and dropped an email from my Inbox into one of these personal folders and, immediately, Outlook repositioned that folder between the Inbox folder and the Drafts folder. Is there a reason for this? Did I unintentionally invoke some function that I am not aware of?

I tried to drag and drop the personal folder back into its “normal” position, but it would not go. So I closed and then restarted Outlook. That did the trick. The folder is now back in its “normal” position.
 
Thank you for the reply. I guess I did unintentionally drag the folder to its new position.

But why I couldn't drag it back to its original position remains a mystery. And, if you take the trouble to reorder your folders by dragging them around, I would have thought that the new order would be preserved over a close and restart of Outlook. But it wasn't in my case - the original order was restored at restart.

I expect that this is one of life's little mysteries!
 
It should be preserved and dragging should work - it's possible it was just outlook being difficult. If it happens a lot, then the navigation pane might be corrupt. The fix is to restart outlook with the /resetnavpane switch - but since it resets the panes, you only want to do it if the problem continues.

If you want to keep the folders in alphabetical order, set the option to sort A-Z - they can't be dragged when it's enabled.
 
I would have assumed that /resetnavpane would reset only the navigation pane. Yes/no? I was wondering why you mentioned "panes" in the plural.

And what is wrong with resetting the navigation pane? Do things happen that you don't really want to happen, and some manual tidying up is necessary?

There doesn't appear to be an option in File > Options to sort A-Z. The only one I can find is on the FOLDER tab - "Show All Folders A to Z". Does this reorder all folders, or does it still leave Inbox, Drafts, Sent Items, and Deleted Items at the top of the list of folders? I like these four folders to be at the top of the list.
 
It resets all of the modules in the navigation pane - not only mail favorites, but the calendar, contacts, and tasks. Favorites is the biggy, because you need to add all of the folders to it again, but if you re-arranged or changed the groups in the calendar and contacts lists, they'll need to be rearranged.

If you only have one account it's not a big deal, but it's more work if you have a lot of folders.

I think the only sort button is on the Folder tab. It puts the 4 default folders on top and sorts the others alphabetically.
 
I'm not a very sophisticated user of Outlook. I don't use favorites, the calendar or tasks. And I've not created any groups in my list of contacts. From what you have stated, I don't think I would notice any difference if I started Outlook with the /resetnavpane switch. Which is probably good news if I ever need to use the switch.

It is also good news about the action of the "Show All Folders A to Z" button. It is precisely what I would require.

Thank you.
 
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