Knowledge Base

Error message in Outlook: "The item could not be deleted"

Article ID: 195863

Article Last Modified on 1/31/2007

Microsoft Outlook 2000 Standard Edition
Microsoft Outlook 2002 Standard Edition
Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
Microsoft Office Outlook 2007

This article was previously published under Q195863

SYMPTOMS

When you attempt to delete a mail message that is on your Microsoft Exchange Server Store, you may get the following error message:

The item could not be deleted. It was either moved or already deleted, or access was denied.

CAUSE

When someone is viewing the same message folder from another computer (for example, via folder-sharing or delegate access) and deleted the message, you do not see that the Microsoft Exchange Server has not yet updated Outlook.

RESOLUTION

Give the Microsoft Exchange Server time to update Outlook.

MORE INFORMATION

The amount of time required for the update is dependent upon factors that include, but not limited to:

Network traffic
Network protocol binding order on your computer
The load on the Microsoft Exchange Server
Public folder replication within the Microsoft Exchange Server system
Movement of mailboxes from one mail server to another
Offline address book generation

Certain operations on the Microsoft Exchange Server will have higher priority than others based on process scheduling and server demand. For more information about this error message, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

274492 (CW): Error messages when too many items are selected

289999 Error message when you delete large number of messages

Additional query words: slow OL2000 OL2002 OL2003 OL2007

Keywords: kbprb KB195863