Microsoft Outlook crashing when copying email text? Here’s what you can do

Last week, Microsoft issued a new support page for anyone who’s using the Microsoft 365 version of Outlook, describing an issue that you may run into when trying to copy text in an email.

If you’re on Current Channel Version 2409 (Build 18025.20096) of classic Outlook, you may experience an app crash when copying text using the Ctrl + C keyboard shortcut. It’s most likely to happen when using languages with an IME (Input Method Editor).

Microsoft is currently investigating the issue to find its root cause and address it with a future patch. While waiting for a bug fix, you can get around this problem with one of two possible workarounds:

Option 1: Revert to an earlier version of the IME (Input Method Editor). Microsoft has a separate support page on how to do that.

Option 2: Revert Outlook itself to a version earlier than 2409. You can use the Update History feature in Microsoft 365 apps to change Outlook to version 2408. Alternatively, follow these steps:

1. Open a Command Prompt with Administrator privileges. You can do this by right-clicking on the Start menu button and selecting Terminal (Admin).
2. Type and enter this command into the command prompt: cd %programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun
3. Then, type and enter this command: officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.17928.20156

Back in August, a similar bug was found where Outlook and other Microsoft 365 apps could crash when typing text or using spell check. That one was fixed in an update that came out about a month later, so it might take about the same amount of time for this bug, too.