There was an error reading the rules from the server

Sometimes I get this error when I start Outlook:

Anyone know if it's an issue? Outlook otherwise starts and works normally after that.

2 Answers

There are two types of rules : Client/local, or server-side.

One or more rules on the Exchange server seem to be corrupted.

If you don't care about the server rules, you may remove them by running the command
OUTLOOK.EXE /cleanserverrules. You may also use the parameter /cleanclientrules, or even/cleanrules to removes both sets of rules (backup first the existing rules).

You could be more selective about server rules by logging into office.com in the Outlook webapp and looking at all the rules. You could then delete and recreate them one by one until you find the corrupted rule.

You could try below methods and check if this issue continues:

1. Recreate outlook profile.
2. Export the rules out to local file.(This method is provided by above thread.)

• Delete all the rules.
• Restart outlook.
• Open Rules again, if you see (client-only) rules again delete them all.
• Create any simple rule and save it.
• Restart Outlook.