Do you have hidden Outlook rules you need to remove from your system because they send some or all incoming emails upon receipt to your Junk or Deleted Items folder? I have seen this issue many times (often because malware sneaks onto the client’s computer) and have been fortunate to resolve it each time.
Error messages
When you review the rules section in Outlook, you will typically see the “There are rules created with a different Outlook or Outlook Web Access that are not shown” which indicates that the malware created the rule and then hid it to make sure that it goes unnoticed. If you are an expert at blocking junk e-mail in Outlook, use that knowledge to see if filters are in place to discard your communications.
Before Repairing
Before following my removal instructions, export (as editable text) the rules currently saved, so you can import them later instead of re-entering them manually. This is helpful if you have been creating rules for years and don’t want to spend hours recreating them.
Removing Hidden Outlook Rules
Please close Outlook and then try to launch the Run window. Once the Run window is visible, type outlook.exe /cleanrules and press Enter to execute the command. Once the process is complete, reopen Outlook and see whether the yellow triangle is gone.
After Repairing
Now that you’ve removed the hidden rules from Outlook, try sending an email to yourself (or a contact that was being filtered) and see whether it still ends up in the Deleted Items folder. If it works, you can import any rules you backed up (after manually removing the malware rules) and send another email to yourself. If there are no further issues after the import, your issue is resolved. Next, check whether you can delete any rules you no longer need, then make a new backup for safekeeping.
Why It Happens
Malware gets onto your computer and then attempts to send phishing emails to your contacts and other users whose email addresses were harvested from databases. Some email accounts (especially the free ones) will be disabled and replaced with a new one when the user starts to get spam, so when the malware on your computer tries to send an email to those accounts or your contact with an auto-reply turned on, you will see that your account is compromised by the alert email in the inbox. To keep those reply emails from going unnoticed, the rules send them to an alternate folder (usually the deleted or spam folder) as soon as they arrive.
