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

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

315 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2022-06-20T18:38:43+00:00

    IMHO Yahoo/AOL needs to roll back their change that requires IMAP clients to support UIDONLY in order to see all messages. Otherwise, EVERY IMAP-supporting email client (not just Outlook, but Apple mail, Thunderbird, etc) will need to update their software to accomodate. People with old systems whose clients can't be updated would be out of luck.

    Yahoo/AOL needs to take action here. They created the problem and made this change without notifying their paying subscribers such as myself and others of you on this thread.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2022-06-20T18:12:56+00:00

    Update: The 2011 issue mentioned above is a red herring. Please ignore.

    That said, I have backups since early 2021 and I can see that the 10000 limit was imposed on my account in 2 steps. I have 2 Yahoo addresses: the "yahoo.com" original that's the administrator and the custom domain one. The yahoo.com address was pared first followed by the custom domain.

    I have all the messages going back to 2001 in backup/archive so I'm OK for now, but need to find a new email provider so that this doesn't happen again.

    This is really horrible. The reason I use Outlook/IMAP is so that I can have "one window" access to all email (there's a 3rd account I need to use as treasurer for a local entity, hosted on Google), Outlook's search is better, it's easier to move messages between accounts as needed, and I can access everything when offline. None of that is possible in the Yahoo webmail interface.

    I'd be interested in hearing suggestions as to a better email hosting service.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2022-06-20T17:33:29+00:00

    Thanks. you may add AOL Mail to my name if needed.

    Steven Ger AOL Mail

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2022-06-20T16:08:01+00:00

    Thank you all for participating and adding your names.

    Turns out the post office is closed today, so it gives us all another day to add names to the letter before I print and send it to Yahoo Corp office tomorrow.

    What I have so far is not overly impressive, but might have to make do :-)

    Yan Teper, Yahoo mail, Outlook, USA
    Michael Walker, AOL Mail, Outlook, Canada

    Eva Walker, Yahoo Rogers, Outlook, Canada
    Hal Fogelman
    Susan Gray, AOL and Yahoo mail

    Philip Nowicki
    Manish Naik, Yahoo India
    Dave Burns, Rogers Canada
    Norman Altman (AOL and Yahoo)
    Alan Dumoff, Esq.
    I H Binash, Yahoo mail from AT&T , Outlook 2013, USA
    Mark Cousins
    Steven Ger

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2022-06-20T12:46:08+00:00

    Understand the frustratuon (we are all having it); but this does not appear to be a Microsoft Outlook and/or Office 365 issue. There as been prior discussion on that issue in this forum. see also:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/Thunderbird/comments/v4ydu0/10000_email_limit_via_imap_in_yahoo_email/

    This appears clearly to be a Yahoo issue, but going deeper perhaps those that provide service to Yanoo.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments