Outlook Cannot delete folders because it contains private items the folders are empty

A user of mine had some email folders that when we attempted to move them outlook said "Cannot move because of private items" we recreated the folder structure and then tried to delete the empty folders however the empty folders say "Cannot delete this folder. Right-click the folder, and then click Properties to check your permission for the folder. See the folder owner or your administrator to change your permissions. Cannot copy this folder because it may contain private items."

2 Answers

You need to ask your Exchange administrator to set permissions on that specific folder: Set-MailboxFolderPermission -Identity :\Marketing -User -AccessRights Owner For more information about this command, see:

After that, you will be able to delete the folders. You could also ask your Exchange administrator to delete the folders for you.

You can try to give yourself permissions on those folders, by right clicking the folder and click properties (as the error suggests, but that's probably not going to work, it's possible that someone changed permissions on your folders).

Here is the easiest workaround... Transfer the contents to another renamed folder of the same name, then Rename the folder (i.e. 007). Then click on Properties and clear offline items (should have been emptied after you transferred any files).Then click on your permissions tab and delete any other persons other than yourself that had any access to this folder and make sure that your permission level is set to Owner, and click Apply.

You should now be able to delete the folder