Forum Discussion
Run rule now is grayed out
Microsoft engineers have confirmed a bug with “Run Rules Now” in New Outlook.
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):
- Forward To
- Forward As an Attachment To
- Redirect To
- Send Text Message To
- Display Desktop Alert
- Play a Sound
Also, the following actions are temporarily disabled during their investigation. Microsoft’s goal is to restore them by Friday, September 26. (My fingers are crossed.)
- Categorize
- Move To
- Copy To
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#traccreations4e-r25 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.