Cannot dismiss reminders in Outlook [Fix]

Outlook seems to have a rare behavior of sending reminders over and over again to some users. If you cannot dismiss reminders in Outlook or they keep reappearing, then this article is for you. The reminders keep buzzing, and neither does selecting Dismiss or Dismiss all work. And the worrying part is that some of the events are weeks or months overdue or don’t exist, at all.

Microsoft Outlook is one most popular email platforms, and the reminder feature is crucial to many users. However, it is annoying to get reminders that you already took care of months ago. To make matters worse, when you dismiss the reminders, you notice that they cannot be dismissed or after some time they keep reappearing.

Fix Cannot dismiss reminders in Outlook

If you cannot dismiss reminders in Outlook, or they keep reappearing, try the following solutions to fix the issue.

Reset Reminders using a command
Clear offline items
Delete Reminders using MFCMAPI
Create a new Outlook profile

Let us now look at these solutions one by one.

1] Reset Reminders using a command

The Microsoft Outlook Reminder folder might be corrupted and the best way to fix this is resetting or clearing it. To reset Reminders using a command, try the following steps:

First, close Microsoft Outlook then go to the next step.
Open the Run dialog box by pressing the Windows button + R.
Type the following command on the Run box and press Enter on the computer keyboard:
```
outlook.exe /cleanreminders
```

If this solution doesn’t work, try the next method.

2] Clear offline items

The reminders in Outlook may keep reappearing if there are sync issues, and to fix this you need to delete all offline items in the Calendar folder. Note that this clears items in the local copy, but they will be redownloaded again from the server, Try the following steps;

Go to the affected calendar and right-click it.
Select Properties and then click Clear Offline Items.
Finally, click OK to complete the process.

This procedure will remove all items in the calendar folder. To re-download the items, select Send/Receive and then click the Update Folder option from the ribbon. This will force the items to re-download.

3] Delete Reminders using MFCMAPI

To delete the Reminders folder using MFCMAPI, also known as Microsoft Exchange Server MAPI Editor, use the following steps;

Close Outlook, and then go to GitHub and download the most recent version of MFCMAPI.
Open MFCMAPI and go to Tools > Options.
Next, tick the boxes next to Use the MDB_ONLINE flag when calling OpenMsgStore and Use the MAPI_NO_CACHE flag when calling OpenEntry.
Click OK to save these changes.
Select Session and then click Logon.
Here, select the account profile you want to modify and click OK.
Locate the mailbox you want to open and double-click it.
Click on Root Container to expand it.
Now you can see the Reminders folder; right-click it and select Delete folder.
Finally, clear or reset Reminders by running the commands Outlook.exe /cleanreminders and Outlook.exe /ResetFolders.

These steps ensure that Reminders restores valid entries and recreates new folders.

TIP: Turn off Outlook Calendar reminders and popup notifications

4] Create a new Outlook profile

This solution will not necessarily fix the issue but it will help you determine whether your current Outlook profile has issues. For example, there could be sync issues with your account that trigger reminders to keep reappearing. Create a new Outlook profile using the following steps:

Open the Control Panel on your PC.
Go to Mail (Microsoft Outlook) > Show Profiles.
Next, select Add and provide a name to the new Outlook profile.
Provide your account information and then set the profile account as default.
Now launch Microsoft Outlook and see if you can dismiss reminders of the new profile.

We hope something here works for you.

Read: Enable or disable Forgotten Attachment Reminder in Outlook

Why do Outlook meeting reminders keep popping up?

Outlook meeting reminders keep popping up because the Reminders folder is corrupted or there are sync issues with your Outlook profile account. Another cause can be a corrupted PST file, and you can repair this file to fix the issue. Also, viruses can trigger this problem but in very rare cases.

Read: Stop Outlook Calendar email notifications

Why are Outlook reminders not popping up?

The reminders might not pop up in Outlook because you have network connection issues, the date is wrong or the Reminders folder is corrupted. Sync issues might also be the problem. Ensure that your Outlook is updated, as well. You can use the solutions in this post to try to fix the issue.