Ignore all email messages in a conversation

You can keep unwanted conversations out of your Inbox by using the Ignore Conversation feature. Ignore Conversation removes all messages related to the conversation that you select, and moves future messages in the conversation directly to your Deleted Items folder.

You might know a Conversation by the term email thread. A Conversation is the complete chain of email messages from the first message through all responses. The messages of a Conversation have the same subject.

For example, when you send a message to someone and then they reply a Conversation results. In many Conversations, there might be many replies back and forth, or even multiple people all replying to parts of the Conversation.

Ignore a conversation

1. In the message list, select the conversation or any message within the conversation that you want to ignore.

2. On the Home tab, in the Delete group, select Ignore .

   

   If you are working from an open message, on the Message tab, in the Delete group, select Ignore.

3. Select Ignore Conversation.

   Note:  The Ignore Conversation command in step 3 appears in the Ignore Conversation dialog box. This dialog box doesn't appear if you previously selected the Don't show this message again check box.

Stop ignoring a conversation

To stop ignoring a conversation, do the following:

Note:  You can only recover an ignored conversation if it is still available in the Deleted Items folder.

1. In the Deleted Items folder, select the conversation that you want to recover, or any message within that conversation. By default, the Deleted Items folder is arranged by date. To change to Conversation view, select Arrange By, and then select Conversation.

2. On the Home tab, in the Delete group, select Ignore .

   

3. Select Stop Ignoring Conversation.

   The conversation is moved back to your Inbox. Future messages are delivered to your Inbox.

   Note:  The Stop Ignoring Conversation command in step 3 appears in the Stop Ignoring Conversation dialog box. This dialog box doesn't appear if you previously selected the Don't show this message again check box.