Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
My Hotmail "Sent Messages" folder always remains empty, though I sent a number of emails. As a result, I can never confirm they were sent nor review the text again unless I "cc" myself. A search online yielded no results specific to this question nor an email contact for MSN. What's up?
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In my humble opinion, Hotmail has several annoyances, and this is another one. I can guess why they do it, but nonetheless it annoys a lot of people.
Hotmail makes saving "Sent Messages" difficult.
Apparently on purpose.
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It's very simple, really. When you compose a new message in Hotmail, at the bottom of the message is a checkbox:
Notice how it defaults to being unchecked?
Notice how it defaults to being unchecked for every message you send?
The bottom line is that you must remember to check that box every time you send a message. There's no way that I'm aware of to make "Copy Message to Sent Folder" the default behavior.
If you forget? You're out of luck.
Annoying.
Now, the question is "Why do they do it this way?" My theory, and it's only a theory, is that MSN is worried about server space. If every user saves a copy of every message they send ... that adds up to a lot of messages taking up a lot of space. And more space means more hardware and more cost for MSN. More cost for them for what they provide as a free service.
Certainly there are alternatives. I strongly recommend against any of the free services as your sole email account, or for anything important. (More on why in my article "Are free email services worth it?") But even other free services, such as GMail, do what I consider to be "the right thing" and allow you to save all your sent mail automatically.
So, it's pretty much up to you: remember to check the box each and every time.
Or switch to a different service.
Article C2600 - March 22, 2006 « »
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
August 21, 2009 6:00 PM
I'm am very irratated that my MSN account (that I was forced to use with teh purchase of my computer) now forces me to the msn.com/hotmail.com and will not show me my sent messages...yahoo to msn...losers
22-Aug-2009
April 1, 2010 11:01 PM
You go into options and you will see a section called saved sent messages. go in there and tick the box that you want your sent messages saved. I just created a new account and had the same problem. the old email with hotmail automaticaly saved the sent messages. Hope this works for you
May 15, 2010 8:10 AM
My Hotmail "Sent Messages" folder from today morning its empty, I sent a number of emails. Please make my all emails back to same folder so that i will keep my complete record. Its very important email so please update.
Please update my record i wil very thankful to you wt for your reply
15-May-2010
March 15, 2011 1:43 PM
I found out why the e-mails i send never appear on the sent section, if you want your sent message to appear there click on option on the top right corner, under "Writing email" click "Saving sent messages" and set it.
June 13, 2011 8:26 AM
You can save your sent emails with hotmail by clicking on Hotmail / Options / More options... / Saving Sent Messages (under Writing Email) / select save all sent messages in the Sent Items folder. Hope this helps.