How to troubleshoot “This computer only” folders in Outlook for Windows

If you are using Bridge with Outlook, you may see a folder marked as “This computer only”. If you see this folder, it means the folder is local to your device and not synchronized to Proton Mail. If you remove your account from Outlook, all data within this folder will be lost.

What causes this to happen

With Proton Mail, you can create folders under the “Folders” group and labels under the “Labels” group, as shown on the image above. If you create a folder or label outside these groups, Bridge will return an error message, as this is not possible.

If this happens, Outlook does not recognize the error and instead creates a local folder, which cannot be synchronized to the Proton Mail server.

How to resolve the issue

A local folder cannot be synchronized to Proton servers, meaning it will not appear in Proton Mail web or mobile applications. To resolve this issue, you must create a new folder under the “Folders” dropdown, and then copy the messages into the new folder.

Here’s how. 

1. To create a new folder, right-click Folders and click New Folder… 
2. Next, enter the name of the folder you want to create.

3. Once the folder is created, you can copy the messages to the new folder. To copy messages, open the folder that contains your messages, press CTRL + A to select them all, right-click and choose Move → Copy to Folder.
4. Lastly, select the new folder you created with your Proton Mail account.

Important note

Keep in mind that this is essentially an import of messages. That means it will take some time for all the messages to transfer into your Proton Mail account. As Outlook does not show the import progress, it will remain unclear when it has finished.

Additionally, it is possible that some messages cannot be imported due to invalid headers, which are not RFC-compliant. We encourage you to copy the messages, so they will remain safe in your local folder.