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
    2022-07-05T20:07:30+00:00

    I'm a bit late to the party. But, I applied the recommended change to one of my two PC's running Outlook two days ago, with the following results:

    1. Once I made the change, my emails started downloading again, beyond the 10,000 message limit, as expected. However, it is progressing at a glacial pace. In two days only 83,000 of my over 200,000 messages have downloaded. The download seems to go in small bursts of dozens or hundreds at a time every few hours. Anyone else experiencing this?
    2. As was noted before, when the change at Yahoo/AOL was first made, the syncing of Spam messages moved from a folder called "Bulk Mail" to a new folder called just "Bulk". Since I've applied the recommended change, the "Bulk" folder has disappeared but Spam messages are not syncing to the old "Bulk Mail" folder. When checking my second PC which I have not fixed, there are new Spam messages in the "Bulk" folder. Since virtually all the messages AOL shunts to Spam are for me legitimate emails, this is a real problem for me. Is this the same for everyone? Does anyone know if there is a way to reestablish the link between the AOL Spam folder and the Outlook "Bulk Mail" folder?

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2022-07-02T16:12:40+00:00

    Thank you Daniel for posting this information about using a different IMAP server address. It kind of makes sense, but I am having doubts about throwing a third party software in the mix. Did you have to install Aid4Mail or did you already have it? I know nothing about fookes.com or Aid4Mail. Can you explain what it does and why we need it? I think I will hold out for now to see response from Yahoo Corporate to my letter.

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2022-06-19T21:36:00+00:00

    Yes, please add me as an AOL user and thanks for the effort.

    Alan Dumoff, Esq.

    What I haven't seen mentioned is while it shows 10,000 messages I only have a fraction of that showing, just going back 6 months even though the Outlook slider is set to show all off-line mail.

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2022-06-15T18:27:27+00:00

    Hi, @YanTeper

    This is an excellent letter...thanks for putting it together! I've made some minor edits for your consideration, shown in bold red font below:

    Dear Sirs<br><br>I am addressing this directly to the CEO and the CTO of Yahoo Inc since no one in Yahoo Customer Care offered any other escalation path to address an issue that is negatively impacting a great many Yahoo Mail customers.<br><br>As has been noticed by many Yahoo Mail customers there was an implementation rolling across the US IMAP Servers for Yahoo and AOL Mail. It has been impacting customers at different geographic locations between February and June likely based on the IMAP Servers rollout schedule. No warning to or engagement of these customers occurred prior to the implementation of this change.<br><br>The change impacted all Desktop client software that is used by Yahoo Mail customers who prefer to utilize Desktop email applications rather than Webmail. That includes all versions of Microsoft Outlook (from 2010 to the latest 365) both on Windows and on MacOS platforms, Mac Mail on MacOS, Thunderbird on Windows and possibly others that I am not aware of. I have seen complaints from many dozens to hundreds of customers. I do not have the means to accurately estimate the number of people that have been affected, but my guess, it is probably in the hundreds and or thousands already, and might reach tenss tens of thousand if nothing is done to fix the problem.<br><br>The direct effects of the IMAP servers software change are as follows<br><ol type="1"><li><p data-prewrap="true">When desktop client app starts up and establishes connection to Yahoo or AOL Mail, the IMAP Servers that control that connection limit download of messages to Desktop client to 10000 per folder. Many of the customers prefer keeping longer history in their Desktop Inbox and limiting the number of messages greatly reduces the search ability within their own emails.<br>I used to be able to search within 10yrs of may emails, now I am limited to one year or so.</p></li><li><p data-prewrap="true">One of the responses Yahoo and AOL support gives to people having this problem is to move emails to folders rather than keeping them in the Inbox. We could discuss <strong><span style="color: rgba(173, 0, 0, 1)">the</span></strong> merits of that advise separately, but it is nearly impossible to follow, because the same IMAP server change limits the number of messages that can be moved as a group from Inbox to a folder to under 20.</p></li></ol><br>Imagine trying to move 10000 messages and more to different folders in batches of 20 msgs at a time!!?<br><br>However, the most frustrating (bordering on outrageous) part of this is how Yahoo and AOL support reacted to customer questions or complaints. They vehemently deny there was any change made to establish the message limit which is clearly not true. Some of the affected customers were able to issue an Open SSL query to IMAP servers that returns only 10000 messages to the Inbox whereas it is expected to return all messages without any limit. Furthermore, the freely accessible Yahoo developers webpage documents that the standard IMAP API call that has been used for many years to access the email, now returns only 10000 messages, and a NEW API UIDONLY call needs to be used to download all messages without limit. Yahoo and AOL support, while denying anything changed on their IMAP server side, direct customers to contact vendors of the Desktop client software, such as Microsoft and Apple. Clearly that implies that the vendors would need to implement changes based on the NEW IMAP API to be able to download all messages without limit. Needless to say, the vendors tell us that their software does not impose any message limits and downloads what is given to them by IMAP Servers. Yahoo R&D clearly neglected to coordinate their IMAP Servers change with the corresponding required changes on the Desktop client side thus negatively impacting all of the Desktop mail client customers. That is a clear violation of the very basic rules of client server development basic principles and good practices, as well as complete neglect for customer experience. Now Yahoo/AOL is trying to force their customers to put pressure on the Desktop client vendors to backfill their own failure to properly coordinate the changes. Additionally, even if and when Microsoft and Apple make the changes on the email client side to use the NEW UIDONLY API, the client updates will be only rolled to the current Outlook 365 and other latest email client software. That leaves out the great multitude of customers who use older versions of Outlook and other email client software that no longer receive vendor updates.<br><br>Clearly this change needs to be reversed or backed out until such time as when it can be implemented in a smooth and transparent manner.<br><br>We are asking the Yahoo/AOL Corporate management to step in and right the wrong done to us by this cavalier and neglectful change to the IMAP servers.

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2022-06-12T20:03:31+00:00

    There are lots of complaints about the 10,000 limit from Mac OS users as well, so it seems to be a Yahoo constraint. Sample: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253868443

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments