Forum Discussion
Run rule now is grayed out
Microsoft engineers have confirmed a bug with “Run Rules Now” in New Outlook.
Updated as of November 18, 2025: For now, rules that use these actions won’t run (see the blog post Why “Run Rules Now” is Greyed Out in New Outlook TRACCreations4E for details and timelines):
- Forward To
- Forward As an Attachment To
- Redirect To
- Send Text Message To
- Display Desktop Alert
- Play a Sound
Also, the following actions were temporarily disabled during their investigation. Resolved on Friday, September 26.- Categorize
- Move To
- Copy To
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#traccreations4e-r25 updated reponse 11/18/2025
original response 9/24/2025
What you’re seeing is expected behavior for Outlook.com accounts: rules that categorize, flag, or move emails can often only run automatically on incoming messages. Manual execution is limited for some types of rules, especially category or flag-based ones—this is by design in Outlook.com and the web interface.
A few tips to work around it:
Check rule type
- Rules that delete, move, or forward can usually be run manually.
- Rules that categorize or flag typically cannot be executed manually in Outlook.com.
Use Outlook desktop (Windows)
- If possible, on Outlook for Windows, rules are more flexible and allow manual execution for a wider range of actions.
Alternative workaround
- Temporarily modify the rule to perform a “move” action instead of just categorizing; then you can run it manually. Once applied, you can revert the action.
In short, your rules aren’t broken—it’s just a limitation of Outlook.com/manual execution for certain rule types. Automatic processing for incoming mail will still work as intended.