Exchange Outlook Settings Cloud Save

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Hello all! 

Need some assistance in understanding the "Store my Outlook Settings in the cloud". I've tried the google search and didn't find quite was I was looking for. 

I have had two users recently report odd issues in their Windows Outlook clients (Office365 Business). Two users reported outbound emails getting stuck in the outbox and the other also reported Sent emails not being sent to the Sent folder. After searching I found the configurations for these in the Outlook client but could nots save the settings. 

Ref:

Cloud Save Setting: Outlook > File > Options > General > Cloud Storage Options

Sent Email Folder: Outlook > File > Options > Mail > Save Messages

Outbound emails Setting: Outlook > File > Options > Advanced > Send and Receive

Found a post saying to disable the Cloud Storage Options and then I was able to set them locally. 

My Question is, is there a method to review/update the Cloud Settings as an Admin. My guess it might be Exchange PowerShell only (doubt there is a UI for it). I can't explain why the change happened; but clearly something went wrong with the cloud settings user profile.  I would like to get ahead of this issue before more users are impacted. Mostly want to review the cloud settings for each user(s), and update the settings to standardize the deployments. 

If there is not a PowerShell get/update cmdlet what is the best way to update these settings? I'm afraid to re-enable the feature and wipe out the local configuration. 

In theory the cloud save seems like a good idea to standardize deployments, I would hate to disable it. That said, does anyone know a method to disable the feature for the organization?

Thank you

Richard 

[#2]

Hi Richard! I found your post while searching for more information on this problem. We've started seeing it with our users in the past couple of weeks. So far it's only impacting a small number of them but it's already causing headaches for our helpdesk.

The only somewhat-helpful resource I've found is Microsoft's article on how to disable it via GP or registry: https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/office/information-about-store-my-outlook-settings-in-the-cloud-.... I also found some reports of this happening with Outlook 2019 specifically, but that was back in mid-2021. We're running Outlook 365 (version 2202 build 14931.20660, semi-annual update channel)

We'd love to better understand what causes this to happen, and would prefer not to have to disable this for the entire organisation if other options exist. I'll be logging a ticket to Microsoft, but did you discover anything more about it yourself? It'd be great to hear either way.

Regards, Karri

[#3]

@KarriS 
I have been experiencing the same issues - I wish there was more information on how to reset these settings or how to resync them. I was able to correct the issue by complete uninstalling Office, restarting and then reinstalling.

Its not clear to me if a network problem caused a sync issue with outlook and the settings. I had the same behavior where settings would uncheck themselves if store in cloud was enabled.

Also from that article - this is not very clear to me:

Cloud stored settings synchronize when you start Outlook, and then at hourly intervals and the data is cached on the local PC in the following registry location:
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Settings\Data

Does this mean after changing the settings we should wait an hour before closing for it to sync or every hour will the options deselect themselves based on the cloud settings. I feel it's the latter - because users have enabled their missing options and then they would uncheck themselves in the same session. 

Looking at Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Settings\Data on the affected user and this is the  global_Advanced_Sendimmediately key (this option kept un-checking) value:

{"name":"Advanced_SendImmediately","itemClass":"","id":"","scope":"global","parentSetting":"","secondaryKey":"","status":"LOCAL","type":"Bool","timestamp":0,"metadata":"","value":"true","isFirstSync":"false","source":"UserOverride"}

Here is global_Advanced_Sendimmediately on an unaffected user: 

{"name":"Advanced_SendImmediately","itemClass":"","id":"","scope":"global","parentSetting":"","secondaryKey":"","status":"SYNCEDTOSERVICE","type":"Bool","timestamp":0,"metadata":"","value":"true","isFirstSync":"false","source":"UserOverride"}

And then the same value on after recently reinstalling office and opening Outlook:

{"name":"Advanced_SendImmediately","itemClass":"","id":"","scope":"global","parentSetting":"","secondaryKey":"","status":"PENDINGSYNC","type":"Bool","timestamp":0,"metadata":"","value":"true","isFirstSync":"true","source":"UserOverride"}

Repairing Office or creating a new mail profile didn't change anything. These settings are cached on the local machine - so is there a place on line the live - or is it safe to remove these reg values or reset the cloud settings to stop going through what seems like a sync loop.  I guess I could just edit the reg values and see what happens - changing isFirstSync to true to see what happens 

I'm gonna run more test and will follow up here - I thought I would share my recent fun with this 😛 

[#4]

I didn't expect to be back so soon - but this fixed the issue for me:

• Deleting the \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Settings\Data folder
• Starting Outlook and toggling off "Store Outlook settings in the cloud" and closing outlook
• running command line switch C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\OUTLOOK.EXE /cleanroamedprefs
• restarting Outlook and toggling on "Store Outlook settings in the cloud" and closing outlook and relaunching.

Listed description for it the command line switch: 
All previous roamed preferences are deleted and copied again from the local settings on the computer where this switch is used. This includes the roaming settings for reminders, free/busy grid, working hours, calendar publishing, and RSS rules.

I will do more testing to be sure - but holy moly this is dumb 😛

[#5]

@Bogdanofff 

Thanks for sharing! Good to know there's a proper fix for users who report the problem to us, but I'm still hoping to find more information about what causes the problem in the first place and how to prevent it (or at least detect it proactively). Our support case with Microsoft hasn't progressed much since I logged it, but I'll share any findings here.

You likely know about this already, but for anyone else stumbling across this thread, the following registry entry will disable the cloud settings feature altogether. After restarting Outlook, it should revert to the settings it had before the problem started.

Registry Hive	HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Registry Path	software\policies\microsoft\office\16.0\outlook\setup
Value Name	disableroamingsettings
Value Type	REG_DWORD
Enabled Value	1
Disabled Value	0