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
    2022-07-02T21:19:39+00:00

    Good idea. I will copy all emailed from before this year to a new PST (already had a PST from years ago); by copying it I can still search the current one... UNLESS they go back to 10,000. So, it's a fallback if and only if needed.

    Found the app password link: https://help.aol.com/articles/Create-and-manage-app-password . And unlike yahoo, no note bout it not working now. You can manage existing ones, so I thought I could get the password from before. They list all the generated ones, but all I can manage is to delete them. Oh well. But I will only use it if the saved one doesn't work (I have 3 IDs). I don't think the others have anywhere near 10,000 emails. Checked. They don't. And an aha -- I was able to find the email that told me about app passwords. FYO, although it came several times, the last one was 10/18/2020. Sure enough, the same URL as above. So when I get a chance, I'll JUST change the incoming imap server on the small rarely used account and see if it works. Should also tell me if I need to generate a new app password. If it works, then I'll change it on the big one and if necessary, generate a new app password. And as I said, COPY emails from before this year to a new PST. I hope that won't need to be used as it means I have to do searches in at least two places.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-07-02T22:02:18+00:00

    Changing the IMAP server name to export... seems to have worked for me too. I wouldn't be surprised if that is the remedy (albeit possibly temporary) that Yahoo/AOL offered in response to all the outrage people like us produced. Obviously without admitting their screwup in the first place.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-07-03T01:51:23+00:00

    OMG!! I just saw that AOL updated its Help page for IMAP settings on Jun 22, 2022 with the new server name!

    Yet their Customer Support team is totally oblivious to this.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-07-03T03:53:58+00:00

    What do you expect from the customer service peons... What's important the company paid attention to our demand, I am almost certain of it now. One for the people against greedy negligent arrogant corporations!

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-07-03T04:20:18+00:00

    Has anyone done that yet? Do we know if you need a new app password? And I guess we have no idea whether this is temporary... maybe they'll do it and give a warning.

    I'll set that server and be prepared to need a new password, and I'll copy (NOT move) off older messages, in case they do it again.

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