Remove all rules in Outlook at once

Today my Outlook was messed up a bit and several rules didn't work correctly any more.

I had a good backup but I found out that if I imported the rules-backup, the original rules were not replaced but instead the imported rules were added to the list. So you need to remove all all the rules by hand first and then import the backup. My Outlook contains more than 100 rules and I had to delete and confirm them all one by one. There is no setting in Outlook that lets you remove all rules at once.

Fortunately I found the following website which show a commandline switch to start Outlook and remove all rules:
Start > Run > outlook /cleanrules

I found out there are a lot commandline switches to start Outlook:
www.howto-outlook.com/howto/commandlineswitches.htm

This isn't Excel related at all but I found it interesting enough to share.

18 comments

Robert

Remove all rules in Outlook at once
It helped me a lot. Thanks.

User

I've been Googling this all morning!!! Thanks!

Sajja

This command removed all rules in outlook.
Thanks a lot.

Maarten

This solved my problem that anoyed me for so long…

Tanx!

Maarten

Peter

Thx,

I needed the clearclientrules as I could remove any rules anymore through the normal UI

Very helpfull
Peter

Nicholas

Had errrantly imported outlook 207 rules into 2003

That went bad, but could not delete.

This command worked great!

Chris

Fantastic! I've been searching the Internet all week for a quick easy solution. That website was excellent.

Rahul

Thank you very much!!!!

Excellent !!!

Deleep

Excellent share my friend!!!

Muhammad Asif

It is an excellent command to ridoff the outlook rules applied on folders at once

Steve D

Worked great. I needed that!!!

Balakrishna. R

Thanks you very much. !!!!!!!

Murali

Yeah it removed all the inactive rules created unknowingly by
my customer while he wants to create a rule for his friends.
This command helped me a lot……………..

Thank You very much………

Muralidharan

santhakumar

Thank You very much….Great

M.S.Santhakumar

Sameul

tks for sharing.

Sameul

really thank you for the sharing. The problem had been solved.