"New Outlook" preview inbox doesn't refresh

Anonymous
2023-03-29T11:58:46+00:00

I've been using the new Outlook preview (the one you enable by toggling the "Try the new Outlook" switch in the main Outlook app for Windows) and I love it. It's so much faster than the main version.

Unfortunately, a few weeks ago I noticed that the inbox had stopped updating automatically. I still get notifications that new messages have arrived, and the icon in the task bar indicates that I have unread messages, but when I look at the Outlook window the inbox shows no new messages. I have to click on a different folder and back to the inbox for it to refresh and show the new emails.

Obviously this make the product basically unusable - I can't afford to risk missing important emails - so I keep switching back to the main Outlook app, each time giving feedback about the problem. Every week or so I switch back to the new Outlook in the hope that the issue has been fixed, but so far it hasn't.

This seems like such a fundamental problem that I can't believe it hasn't been fixed, which makes me wonder whether I'm alone in having this issue. I'm using a work account with Outlook and, to be clear, I don't experience the same issue when I'm using the main Outlook app.

Is anybody else having this problem? Is there anything I can do to fix it or is it a problem with the app itself?

Outlook | Windows | Classic Outlook for Windows | For home

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-03-29T16:02:35+00:00

    I appreciate you taking the time to write all of that. I understand that as the product is in preview for a limited number of users it is to be expected that there will be bugs and missing features. However, I would have thought that the inbox not updating would be deemed a critical bug to be fixed urgently. Since it hasn't been fixed in several weeks, that's why I'm wondering whether this is, in fact, a bug, or an issue that only I am experiencing. It seems very unlikely to me that everybody who is testing the app is having the same problem since, as I said in my original post, it renders that app almost unusable.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-04-18T00:50:08+00:00

    FWIW I am also having this issue so you are not alone.

    It started a week or two ago.

    Any new emails received are not shown in the Inbox until you change folder and change back e.g. Inbox -> sent -> Inbox

    so at a glance you cannot be confident that there are no new emails or just that it has not refreshed.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-04-18T18:27:38+00:00

    FWIW, so am it! I just started using it today. Overall, I like where it is going, but because of this issue, I'm going to turn the preview off. For the Microsoft people responding to this, please don't send a canned response. Acknowledge there is a bug, and that you are aware of it, and it will be fixed, or, tell us it isn't a bug. The canned responses make me think your new AI purchase is answering these messages.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-04-19T14:31:06+00:00

    In this other forum thread they found the layout settings was causing it, "New Outlook" preview inbox doesn't refresh - Microsoft Community. If you can try this see if it helps.

    Workaround:

    Settings/Mail/Layout: in Message Organization don't have it on "Show email as individual messages"

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-04-19T11:47:30+00:00

    Same issue here - I just started using it yesterday, and this morning it is not refreshing. Rather than wringing my hands over it, I'm going back to the old version and will try the new one again later after MS hopefully gets its act together!

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