Forum Discussion

zipswich's avatar
zipswich
Brass Contributor
Jul 08, 2026

How to restore rules for Outlook 2019

My PC had a crash. After I rebooted the PC, I had the following error that I could not get rid of by restarting Outlook: "There was an error reading the rules from the server. The format of the serv...
Jamony's avatar
Jamony
MCT
Jul 08, 2026

Hi, before cleaning rules, back up your PST/OST files and export any rules still visible. If the issue is only with the Exchange mailbox, check Outlook on the web first. outlook.exe /cleanserverrules clears server rules, while /cleanclientrules targets local client rules. I’d avoid /cleanrules until last because it removes both.

zipswich's avatar
zipswich
Brass Contributor
Jul 08, 2026

The timeline is as follows:

All PST files were backed up.

Outlook worked flawlessly for over 10 hours.

PC crashed and rebooted

Outlook showed the aforementioned error message. Most rules were missing, and one rule showed random letters. 

I closed Outlook.

Replaced a PST file with its backup copy as described in step 1.

The rules are still missing. 

One of the email accounts has lots of empty messages as shown by the following screenshot:

If I try to delete one of them, I get the following: