How to Retrieve Sent Email in Outlook

By Alyssa Guzman

Updated September 28, 2017

Retrieving sent email.
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Many email users reference their sent email to validate the transmission of messages, to copy and paste text to a new message and to forward sent email to recipients not included on the original distribution. The Microsoft Outlook Sent Items folder stores the messages a user sends, including information about the message recipient and when the user sent the email. You can retrieve your sent email following the steps described below.

Go to your Microsoft Outlook mailbox. Check to see if the title bar located at the top left area of the Outlook application window reads "Inbox - Microsoft Outlook."

Go to the "All Mail Folders" section of the Navigation Pane located at the left side of the Outlook application window. Look for the "Sent Items" folder and icon--because Outlook lists mail folders alphabetically by default, the Sent Items folder is usually toward the end of the folder list. Click on the "Sent Items" folder.

Look for the sent email message you wish to retrieve. Outlook sorts your sent messages from most recent to oldest by default. Click on the "To" or "Subject" headers if you want to search for a sent email by recipient or subject.

Click to select the email you wish to retrieve. Press your left mouse button two times quickly (double-click) to retrieve the email. If you selected multiple emails, press your right mouse button and select the "Open Items" option from the pick-list.

Tips

If you have a POP3 mailbox account or IMAP mailbox account, look for the "Sent Items" folder under the "Personal Folders" section of the Outlook navigation pane. Outlook groups all sent messages in the same "Sent Items" folder for users accessing multiple POP3 mailbox accounts using a single Outlook interface. If you have a POP3 mailbox account and an Exchange Server mailbox account, Outlook stores sent messages for both accounts in the same "Sent Items" folder. If you have a Hotmail account, look for the "Sent Items" folder under the "Hotmail" section of the navigation pane.

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