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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)
Using classic Outlook for Windows in business environments
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.
Thank you for your help with this.
As with another poster, I use Office 365:
Microsoft® Outlook® for Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2205 Build 16.0.15225.20172) 64-bit .
Thank you everyone who replied with their version. I have included several versions into my reply to Yahoo customer care ostensibly to be forwarded to their engineering team for further investigation. Unfortunately it seems to be a wasted effort on our part as they responded with the same useless recommendations to update Outlook and/or consult Microsoft. After I gave them an example of the same problem on Mac mail they responded that Yahoo does not support 3rd party apps. This is clear dereliction of duty on part of Yahoo, they implemented something that contains a bug limiting IMAP downloads to 10000 msgs and refuse to recognize and fix it. I also started a dialog with them on Twitter and received the same answer. I see very little recourse with this. The only chance for us is to put our heads together to find a way to escalate this and make them realize that there is massive customer dissatisfaction.
Maybe everyone should go on Twitter and follow Yahoo customer care and tweet about this problem. They tell you there to continue with private reply and you can do that, but after you get a bs answer from them, return to general thread and past your conversation there. We should let them know that everyone understands that the problem lies with their recent change to IMAP Servers and it needs to get corrected or backed out until they can correct it.
If anyone can think of another way of getting through to them, I am open to that too. We need to find a way to make them understand that Yahoo mail customer community does not want to put up with their arrogance and indifference to our needs
Mine was AOL, not Yahoo. And it has always been IMAP, at least for 15 or 20 years.
You may be right that it's a bug; I thought they implemented a limit intentionally. Guess it could be either.
But they denied it either way.
Yahoo and AOL use the same technical platform. Verizon bought Yahoo in 2017 and started merging it with the remnants of AOL which it has purchased earlier. In 2021 they were both sold to private investment fund Apollo. They carry separate brands but share the technical platform.
I doubt the limit is intentional, that would be too idiotic. I do think it is a bug though. It is a major inconvenience for people like us who built email use around desktop client and I intend to continue trying to get it fixed
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)