THE ISSUE
When you send email from an IMAP account in Outlook for Mac and then check the Sent Items folder, you see the items that you just sent appear there (duplicated) and one of them is marked as Unread. This issue may occur with various email providers including Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, and others.
For some email providers, another problem may occur: The sent Items do not show their BCC recipients. This issue is dependent on the email provider's system and not directly controlled via Outlook. The workaround described below might not resolve this issue.
STATUS, WORKAROUND
For some email providers, the reason for the duplicates in the Sent Items folder is that their server automatically creates an item in the Sent Items... after which Outlook uploads the same item again.
Outlook relies on the email provider's server for the Read/Unread status of an email. If the status per their server is Unread, Outlook sets it accordingly. To work around this issue, you can turn off the saving of sent items in an IMAP email account. Select your device and take the following steps.
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On the Tools menu, select Accounts
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Choose the IMAP account then select the button for Advanced…
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Select the Folders tab
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Select the radio button for Don’t store a copy of sent messages
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Choose OK
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See Also
IMAP Sent Messages in Outlook for Windows are duplicated and unread in Sent Items folder
Fixes or workarounds for recent issues in Outlook for Mac
IMAP Sent Messages in Outlook for Windows are duplicated and unread in Sent Items folder
