Remove duplicate emails from inbox?

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Posted on by MarcusD1

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I have a problem I though Power Automate would be perfect for, but I can find any existing Flow solutions for it.

I receive many dozens of duplicate emails a day in my Outlook inbox as a result of being included on more than one distro list, and/or part of a "redirect" rule. This obviously clogs up my inbox and causes all kinds of headaches. Since I can't really control which distro lists or redirect rules I'm placed on, I was hoping there was a way to have a rule that when an email arrives, it checks my inbox and if that email already exists, it deletes the new one (or sends it to a subfolder, etc.).

Is this even theoretically possible with PA?

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takolota1 4,882 Super User 2025 Season 1 on at

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Re: Remove duplicate emails from inbox?

@grandMA @ScottShearer

If someone wanted to run things on a schedule & check for duplicate emails in given batches, then you could try altering this template for removing duplicates from a JSON array based on selected columns: https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Automate-Cookbook/Find-and-Remove-Duplicates/m-p/2191403#M1611
grandMA 2 on at

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Re: Remove duplicate emails from inbox?

Hello Scott,

"Clean Up" only works for his own mailbox. I need a automatic solution for shared mailboxes. Have anyone solved the issue already?
ScottShearer 25,228 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Re: Remove duplicate emails from inbox?

I suggest using the built-in Outlook Clean Up function. On the Home ribbon, click on Clean-up and select Folder or Folder and Subfolders.
dororeich 3 on at

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Re: Remove duplicate emails from inbox?

Have you solved your issue already? I am looking for a similar flow that deletes my duplicate emails
jowe1989 2 on at

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Re: Remove duplicate emails from inbox?

Hi Scott
I tried it too and it is like Marcus said. It always delete all mails and not just the duplicated ones. I didnt found any solution to handle it.
Best regards
MarcusD1 271 on at

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Re: Remove duplicate emails from inbox?

Yeah... I've certainly done that before (caused damage and/or created a lot of clean up for myself). 😁 But minimal impact so far this time.

Here's my screen shots:

The full text of the expression is:
length(outputs('Get_emails_(V3)')?['body/value'])

... and thank you for your continued help with this Scott. I just signed up for a "How to Use Flow Expressions" course on Udemy, but I'm not there yet.
ScottShearer 25,228 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Re: Remove duplicate emails from inbox?

@MarcusD1

First, turn off your Flow so that it doesn't do any damage or cause you work.

Then, please post a screen shot of the Flow.
MarcusD1 271 on at

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Re: Remove duplicate emails from inbox?

I fixed the expression, but now it's applying it to every email. My "If yes" action was set to move the duplicate into a sub-folder (or at least that was my intention), but since making the edit to the expression, every email is being moved into the sub-folder. Unfortunately, given the week, I haven't received any duplicates yet since making the correction - so I'm not sure yet how those are behaving.
ScottShearer 25,228 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Re: Remove duplicate emails from inbox?

@MarcusD1

Your expression should reference body/value rather than body. You should have selected Value rather than Body from Dynamic properties.
MarcusD1 271 on at

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Re: Remove duplicate emails from inbox?

I implemented this and let it run over the weekend. It's failing in the Conditional. Doesn't like the logic expression.

This is the expression I have in the Condition:
length(outputs('Get_emails_(V3)')?['body'])

Did I typo something?