Turn Off Clutter in Office 365 and Delete Clutter Folder from Outlook

Turn Off Clutter in Office 365 and Delete Clutter Folder from Outlook

Unfortunately Microsoft’s documentation team can never keep up with Office 365 development team (they don’t seem to be on speaking terms either), so its very rare to actually find accurate instructions for common tasks.  So it is with get rid of the diabolical ‘Clutter’ feature of Office 365 (AKA ‘a slightly less sensitive Junk Mail Folder’), here’s how you do it as of June 2016 (I’ll try and update as MS shift Office 365 around).

How do I Disable Clutter in Office 365?

  • Sign in to Outlook Web Access (the Office 365 Webmail for all intents and purposes) at http://mail.office365.com
  • In the top right hand corner, click the small cog icon, a side bar will appear.
  • Near the bottom of the sidebar is a heading saying My App Settings
  • Click Mail underneath this, you will be take to the Mail Options page
  • On the left menu, underneath the Automatic Processing menu item, click Clutter
  • Uncheck the box that says Separate items identified as clutter
  • Click the Save button at the top of the page (I think its weird having to go back to the top of a page to hit save).

How do I Permanently Delete Clutter Folder in Outlook?

Unfortunately Microsoft are so keen on Clutter that if you delete it, it just comes back! I’m happy to say however that a Microsoft engineer called Stephen Griffin has created a low-level and powerful (therefore dangerous – use carefully) mailbox editing tool called MFCMAPI.
Here’s the process:Identify if you are running a 64bit or 32bit version of Outlook, a good guide can be found here: http://www.sperrysoftware.com/Email-Tools/how-to-tell-if-you-have-32-bit-or-64-bit-outlook/

Download the MFCMAPI tool from the authoers github page:

https://github.com/stephenegriffin/mfcmapi/releases/tag/19.2.19207.938

Or from the free download page: http://mfcmapi.codeplex.com/releases/view/617103

Unzip the file and double-click executable (it doesn’t require installation – its a standalone program)

Click OK to accept the usage notes

From the top menu click Session

Permanently Delete Clutter Folder in Outlook 1

Click Logon… and then select the mail profile in which your mailbox exists, for the vast majoriy this will be the one visible and you can simply click OK

Permanently Delete Clutter Folder in Outlook 2

Now you should see a list of your mailboxes in the top pane, for many this will be one mailbox (as you can see, I’m not so lucky!):

Permanently Delete Clutter Folder in Outlook 3

Double-click the mailbox that contains the Clutter folder you wish to delete.

A new window should appear with Root – Mailbox in the left hand pane.

Click the small triangle next to Root – Mailbox to expand it

Click the small triangle next to the IPM_SUBTREE item in the left pane to expand it (note: this might also be listed as Top Information Store or Top of Outlook data file)

Permanently Delete Clutter Folder in Outlook 4

You should now be able to see the offending Clutter folder, click it to select it then from the top menu, select Property, then Advanced and finally Edit Given Property

Permanently Delete Clutter Folder in Outlook 5

In the Property Tag paste the value 0x10F4000B which should load a property with a property name of PR_ATTR_HIDDEN:

Permanently Delete Clutter Folder in Outlook 6

Click OK

A dialog box will appear, check the Boolean option and click OK

Permanently Delete Clutter Folder in Outlook 7

You can close all of the MFCMAPI windows

Clutter should now be banished to the depths of hell from whence it came.

Bob McKay

About Bob McKay

Bob is a Founder of Seguro Ltd, a full time father and husband, part-time tinkerer-with-wires, coder, Muay Thai practitioner, builder and cook. Big fan of equality, tolerance and co-existence.

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4 comments on «Turn Off Clutter in Office 365 and Delete Clutter Folder from Outlook»

  1. xgman says:

    didn’t work

  2. curiousmarc says:

    That sure worked great! Thanks so much!

  3. CuriousMarc says:

    Also the download link you provided is marked as unsafe. Better to download it straight from the developer:
    https://github.com/stephenegriffin/mfcmapi/releases/tag/19.2.19207.938

    1. Bob McKay says:

      Thanks Marc, added to page!

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