cannot clear the deleted items folder

Lara 0 Reputation points
2026-10-15T00:53:39.55+00:00

My personal Outlook.com account will not permanently delete emails from Deleted Items. I receive the error "You can't permanently delete these items." Recoverable Items is empty, the problem occurs even when deleting a single message, and it persists in an Edge InPrivate window. My mailbox is using 65.5 GB of 100 GB. Storage settings also show a different Deleted Items message count than the folder itself. Please investigate whether there is a mailbox-side deletion or synchronization issue.

Outlook | Web | Outlook.com | Email
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  1. SD - IA 181.2K Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2026-10-15T02:06:01.2166667+00:00

    Hi,

    I will walk through a few steps with you. Some of these are just to help figure out what is wrong, not to fix it right away. So if nothing changes after a step, that is normal. I will keep going until we solve it.

    Typically, the problem is from the backend and cannot be solved on our own.

    Did you try it in a separate browser?

    How much free space is there on Onedrive? Check at https://onedrive.live.com/?v=managestorage&sw=bypassConfig and let me know.

    I look forward to hearing from you to get the results of the troubleshooting.

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  2. SD - IA 181.2K Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2026-10-15T02:16:30.2933333+00:00

    Thank you, this is a corrupted mailbox, surely.

    Is your Microsoft account also used for Work i.e. is it added as a guest in any organization?

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