Move to Folder freezes in Outlook 365 Mac

[Steve_Heckler]

On my m1 MacBook Air running macOS 11.6, I have Outlook 365. After installing the latest update, anytime I two-finger click on a message and choose Move to Folder, Outlook 365 (running in "New Outlook" mode) freezes and I have to force quit it.

I am connected to a single Office 365 Exchange account and do have an enormous folder hierarchy (3 levels and more than 1,000 folders), but two-finger clicking, choosing Move to Folder, seeing the folder list, picking the folder, and then clicking Move were all instantaneous until the update. Now, as soon as I choose Move to Folder, Outlook is immediately unresponsive and stays unresponsive, but CPU usage reported by Activity Monitor goes to 100% and stays there. I have waited over an hour for it to resolve with no luck, and I do have a fast connection (about 400Mbps up/down over wifi). I have tried removing and re-adding my Office 365 account in Outlook, but no luck.

Note: Everything works fine in "Old Outlook" mode - it's just "New Outlook" mode where this is broken.

[#2]

I am having the same issue. MacOS Big Sur 11.6.
Installed update last week and suddenly in NEW OUTLOOK (old outlook works fine) any attempt to move an email to another folder (regardless of account) results in a permanent FREEZE. Force quit is the only way to resume. I tried removing and re-adding all accounts, no luck. Tried trashing and reinstalling office, no luck. Like the previous commenter, I too have 1000's of folders and a very very deep hierarchy in many cases. I will say that if you initially move MANUALLY an email to a folder and then use the MOVE function to that folder it will now work for that folder. Not sure if it will still work once the folder drops off the move list. In case it's now some sort of indexing issue that will take a very long to sort out I'm going to try this weekend to let it run for several days. New Outlook is great and I really hope they fix this soon.

[#3]

Thanks, Vandenburg7, my experience matches yours exactly. And once the folder drops off the move list, you are out of luck (other than manually dragging emails to folders, which works but is a productivity killer when handling/sorting a high volume of email each day).

[#4 · Accepted solution]

Got in touch with Microsoft support and they said this issue is known. They told me to wait for the November release or change to the Beta Channel and install the latest beta build. I did so and the issue was fixed.

[#5]

Perfect!! Thank you for all your efforts.

[#6]

Thanks Steve for your diligence. I'll keep a look out for the November release and post here if it solve the issue.