Why is an IMAP Inbox Only Displaying 10,000 Items When There are Many More Emails on the Server?

Anonymous
2022-05-04T04:23:15+00:00

I have an IMAP email account that is hosted by AOL Mail, which I download into Outlook 365. The AOL Account has emails going as far back as 2015, and until recently all of those emails were visible (and searchable) through Outlook. About 2 weeks ago, I noticed that I could no longer search for emails going back farther than 6 months ago. Those emails are still on the AOL server; I can see them if I use AOL's webmail interface (which is pretty mediocre). But they are no longer downloading into my IMAP inbox. Indeed, at the bottom of the inbox it now says I have 10,000 items. 

                                     [!\[\](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/40c12e9d-b5a2-4a30-8bc4-4503de01cbbc?platform=QnA

That's the maximum. If I delete say 100 emails, another 100 emails will download from the AOL server but the downloading will stop when I hit 10,000. (When new emails download from the account, older emails are deleted so I'm just about always at 10,000 items). The full set of emails remains on the AOL server.
In my IMAP Account Settings for this email account, I have the "Keep Mail offline" setting pushed all the way to the right at "All".
[!\\ I can't find any setting in Outlook that limits the number of emails. Nor does there appear to be any setting in the AOL account that limits 3rd party IMAP mailboxes to only 10,000 items (at least not one that I can find). New emails are downloading and syncing with the AOL server, so my connection settings appear to be correct.
Is there some kind of Registry setting that is limiting the number of items that will load into this email inbox? I used to have access to all of the emails that were on the AOL server. Is there any way to get that back? One last note. I deleted the AOL account from Inbox, rebooted and then reinstalled the AOL account. It still only downloaded 10,000 items in the IMAP inbox. Also I'm using the most recent version of Outlook 365.
Thanks for any help anyone can provide.](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/e4efa42d-54c3-4fa7-b54a-ae7d93efb421?platform=QnA)](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/40c12e9d-b5a2-4a30-8bc4-4503de01cbbc?platform=QnA)

Outlook | Windows | Classic Outlook for Windows | For business

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-03-21T14:45:02+00:00

    Read through this entire thread. I am a Yahoo, now Turbify, paid small business user and my inbox from outlook is now capped at 10k. I had to rebuild my email inbox several times after upgrading my laptop and now I am missing so many of my messages.

    This is unacceptable. I commonly work in the field without internet, and I need access to an offline copy of my emails.

    What am I to do? It seems to me that many of these repairs/fixes have not been stable and I am at wits end.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-06-09T16:24:37+00:00

    Just had this happen with me last night had email back to 2017 when Verizon got rid of their own mail servers and had everyone switch to AOL. Rebooted the computer and now had 10k items in the inbox with mail going back to December 8 2021,

    Office 365 outlook 2016 version 2205 build 15225.20204

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-06-09T13:40:04+00:00

    I've raised the issue with AOL via twitter DM and they, eventually after some debate, washed their hands of it:

    We cannot control how many emails can be loaded on third-party email apps. Please reach out to Apple/Microsoft support for further assistance with their apps.

    They don't explain how or why Apple and Microsoft would agree between themselves to limit inbox downloads to 10,000 items at the same time and just for AOL/Yahoo mail.

    FYI - I'm using Apple Mail: Version 14.0 (3654.120.0.1.13)

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-06-09T00:16:57+00:00

    It happened to me about 2 days ago. I regularly use emails from years ago, with a simple search (from, and starred). I ended up deleting about 5000 emails and it went back, but far from far enough.

    The AOL app had all the emails but searching was relatively primitive -- eventually I found I could use a pulldown and select starred, although only for the simple search. That in itself might allow me to use those emails, but I further found I could use the save button and save on AOL, and it created a folder in outlook. Could ONLY move, not copy, so I tested it with email I was going to delete anyway, and it worked. Gave me a bit of a scare when I moved a bunch but they eventually showed up.

    I called support, and VIP support. Both said it's a problem with the third party app. The first one told me to get local support (in other words go to paid support somewhere), the second at least suggested their webmail which was about the same except I didn't see how to find starred (flagged) emails. So I managed to make a new folder and move in what I needed to access.

    BTW, I have a PC I'm trying to find the time to decommission and reimage at WIn10 (failed a number of times to convert, so I'll restore an old backup or restore factory image and do it). I'll have to reinstall everything but it will be a second computer, not used for serrious stuff.

    For versions:

    The one I'm sure just happened: Win 7 Pro, Office 2016 Pro Plus.

    The one I wasn't using for that search, so can't say how long, Win 10 Pro, Office 2019 Home and Business.

    NO WAY it was outlook. I actually thought Office 2016 wasn't getting updates, but it shows an installation date of May 13, 2022, but still, the limit only kicked in this week. (Older upgrade status on the Win10.)

    I googled, but only now thought to reference AOL and IMAP: "did aol suddenly limit imap to 10000 emails" (no quotes). It found this topic.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-05-07T10:14:00+00:00

    Hello MichaelTabb,

    Thank you for your reply again, and for clarifying the question again, so that we can better understand the problem you are encountering.

    For the scheme that allows you to create subfolders, we recommend that you test it. If you can completely display all your emails in subfolders, the problem may be caused by server limitations, because Office itself does not The number of items in a single folder will be limited, so we hope you can try creating subfolders as a test solution, which can better help us determine the root cause of the problem.

    Looking forward to your reply again.

    Sincere greetings

    Mavis - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

    * Beware of scammers posting fake support numbers here. »

    * Please mark and vote on this answer if it helps, as it will benefit more community members who read here.

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