Moving mail from "Deleted Items" by rule

Unfortunately, rules are processed only when a message arrives in a mailbox, or when a message is sent. There is no way to initate the processing of a rule based on any other action.

The simple solution to this (in my mind) is to use the DeletedItems folder only for the purpose for which it was designed. Don't delete it unless that is your intention. Don't use the Deleted Items folder as a temporary holding facility. If a particular user wants to save emails for a period of time before deleting them, don't delete them. Move the message to the temporary storage container to begin with. However, since my guess would be that the user in question might be a member of upper management, that might be too much to ask.

What this user wants to do would be the same as throwing mail away in a trashcan at home and then not emptying the trash for several months "just in case" the person wanted to retrieve something he threw away. How much sense would that make?

Why not use autoarchiving? You can set autoarchiving to occur every 30 days by clicking on Tools, Options, Advanced, AutoArchive. Set it to 30 days, point it to a PST file, and then uncheck "permanently remove deleted items".

Then right-click onthe Deleted folder, click on Properties, Autoarchive, clean out items older than 1 day, and point to the PST again.

This will result in all Deleted mails being moved to a folder called Deleted in the PST every 30 days.

You can do the same for any other folder in Outlook.

First I would make sure the "Empty the Deleted Items folder upon exiting" is unchecked (in Tools | Options | Other).

Then I would write a VB script to move the items on a scheduled basis or upon Outlook start or stop.