Outlook deletes an email when I am in quick reply and try to delete text

Question

I am having a problem where when I use quick reply and hit the Delete, the email I am working on is deleted. What I am expecting is for some of the text to be deleted, as in older Outlook or any other text editor.

I have tried this on other computer running outlook 2013 and there it works as I would expect. If the reply has focus, the email is not deleted, and instead the text is.

I know it is not a keyboard problem (button stuck) because the problem occurs if I RDP into my machine from a machine on which this issue does not exist.

Incidentally I also cannot Ctrl+C from outlook. It works everywhere else, and normal copy from outlook using right click works. I do not know if this could be related.

Answer 1

Just in case anyone else experienced this...there is a setting in Outlook 2013 that you can uncheck to fix not only the issue of the Delete key deleting emails but also the inability to use CTRL+C to copy text from emails.

Go to File -> Options -> Mail. Under the "Outlook Panes" heading, click the button for Reading Pane. Uncheck the box for "Single key reading using spacebar". Click OK to save that change.

You should now be able to delete text with the Delete key while using in-line replies, and you should also be able to copy/paste. You will no longer be able to use the spacebar to move between messages in your folders.

Answer 2

I only had to close and then re-open Outlook and that fixed the delete key issue. On a side note, I find that with the vast majority of Outlook problems, a new Outlook Profile fixes just about all of them. I hope this helps.

Answer 3

Follow Doug's instructions plus those I provide:

Try rebooting, then open Outlook and reverse the above and reboot again. When you re-open Outlook this last time this behavior is fixed. It seems to be caused by setting changes that are caused by updates being pushed, but that are not persisted to user selectable check boxes, so you don't have any indication the settings apply. This is a workaround fix that returns the functionality to be able to delete text in Outlook without having the original email deleted.

Answer 4

I have this problem too, and no fix that I could find was working. I thought it might be something to do with my mouse cursor changing it's 'attention'.

I remembered that I use a third-party application called "WizMouse" to improve cursor behaviour in Windows. The problem stopped happening when I disabled this. Check if you have any applications that intefere with mouse behaviour, directly or indirectly.

As it happens, this application is so useful, I'll just be avoiding inline replys from now on, instead of keeping it disabled.

Answer 5

Try installing Office 2013 SP1 (just released). http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2817430 I have no particular reason to expect that this will fix the problem, but it's worth a try.

Answer 6

Running a full repair on office fixed both problems. I do not think this is a great solution as it is rather time consuming, but it works. Also is odd as the problem started from the point of original instalation

Answer 7

Sounds Silly but I have noticed this behaviour in the 'Docked' reply windows with some keyboards. The delete action operates on the message instead of the text.

Undock the reply message. The delete key functions as expected. I believe this behaviour is actually different with different keyboards.

Answer 8

Had a similar problem and also had an accumulation of unread reminder notices in bottom left of my screen despite having read and dealt with them already. Unticking the spacebar option didn't work. Only after fully closing Outlook and reopening it resolved the issue

Answer 9

I also had this problem with Outlook (windows 8). The email would disappear from my Inbox but would be retained in my Sent box as part of my reply, even though my intent was to retain the original email in my Inbox. To cure the problem, I: 1. Clicked on Options (the gear logo at the top right corner). 2. Clicked on "Reading Email". 3. Clicked on "Group by conversation and pre-load messages" 4. My default setting was "group by conversation". When I selected "Show messages individually" the original message remained in my Inbox after I reply or forward.