Hi, I have accidentally sorted all of my folders in outlook into alphabetical order. I have literally hundreds of folders within subfolders which have now been sorted alphabetically. How do I undo this accidental alphabetical sort?

I don't think the sort is undo-able.


A backup of your Outlook .pst or .ost data file MAY contain folder sort criteria. It's worth trying.



If you don't have a backup, or if replacing your current Outlook data file with a backup doesn't help, there are two ways forward:


1. Manually reorder all of your folders.


2. Write macros to automate the task of reordering your folders.


The second method is viable because there are sequences of keys to move folders up and down the list. Of course, you can manually press the key sequences, and once you've memorized them, this approach is probably faster than drag-and-drop. But the point of using macros is to allow you to do this by pressing two keys: one key to move a folder up the list, and another key to move a folder down the list.


My guess is that macros to move folders can be produced in a few minutes. I estimate that using macros would enable you to restore order to the list 10 or 20 times faster than by dragging-and-dropping.

Thanks Alan. I don't even know how I did this. I don't know anything about macros so I suppose I should learn. Luckily a lot of the subfolders are still in the correct folder. The other issue I'm finding now is that when trying to sort I can only drag and drop into an existing folder. When dragging the folder to it's desired location, the solid black line doesn't appear between folders to allow me to drop in between. I have spent a lot of time googling but can't find a solution for this either. Do you know anything about this?
Thanks for your time.
Jannine