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
    2022-07-08T14:27:39+00:00

    I never marked something SPAM or not SPAM in outlook. If I found something like that I would log onto AOL and mark it SPAM, or select "this is not SPAM", as I was hoping it would help train their engine to mark similar emails. It does seem to work as the number of "your McAfee is expiring" has dropped and they show up in the SPAM folder (when I log into AOL or Webmail).

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-07-09T19:05:59+00:00

    I use Mozilla Thunderbird for multiple email addresses on my PC's. The same thing happened first with my two AOL accounts. One AOL and the other an older Netscape that has been acquired by AOL. Then on all my Yahoo accounts. It did not happen to all accounts at once. First AOL, then Netscape, then Yahoo, all probably spaced by a week or so. So this is not Outlook or Thunderbird. And yes, both my AOL and Yahoo accounts still have all the emails dating back to 2010 or older, some 50,000+. Yet my Thunderbird page limits total emails to 10,000. I too deleted one AOL account and reloaded on Thunderbird to no avail. Then I downloaded Mailbird and the same thing happened.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-07-09T19:53:03+00:00

    This is mostly confirmed (if not acknowledged), although I think someone saw it mentioned on AOL of yahoo offically: use export.imap.aol.com instead of imap.aol.com and you get them all back. I suspect the batching of updates depends on the power of your PC and/or internet connection. For me, old slow PC had a lot of pauses, newer one moved steadily and finished much faster.

    Cost, not sure if it's acknowledged, is that your spam folder by whatever name, spam or bulk mail, is NOT supported in the mail client (exist but empty). For me that's an annoyance but not serious. I like that I can search with the index all those tens of thousands of messages (and in the newer PC, the index built as fast as it came in; in the old one I had maybe 20,000 to go when the mail was all in). If the cost is logging into webmail to check for misclassified spam, I'll live with it. (And moving it in outlook doesn't teach AOL's algorithms.)

    I only check the spam folder every few days or less, so logging into webmail is ok. I also flag as spam by logging in (used to do AOL, now I see it can be marked in webmail and it's a little easier). I do that because it learns that way, and it somewhat works (4 of 5 recent McAfee expired scam emails were properly moved; I only had to mark one).

    BTW, even if the email wasn't obvious, I would know it's a SCAM because I get it free with my paid AOL subscription. If it was being dropped, I 'd get an AOL email telling me my benefits changed.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-07-11T16:40:19+00:00

    I have the latest version or Outlook. Just installed the windows 11 upgrade.

    It won't let me erase emails. It flashes the trash symbol and flag, but the go away immediately

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-07-11T23:28:15+00:00

    I thought this was mostly solved but I'm having issues I'm not finding here.

    First, great gratitude to everyone working on this and esp reporting the export.imap.aol.com workaround. My 83,000 emails came down pretty quickly and so nice to see them.

    However, because MS outlook is now referencing that server, it is not coordinated with any other mail client, which are still on imap.aol.com. So when I delete spam from my inbox on my iOS devices it doesn't delete the MS Outlook email, and vice versa. If I go on aol.com and delete emails, they are still in Outlook because the export and regular servers aren't refreshing each other,

    I talked with high level Apple support who remoted into my iPad and we tried a number of ways to set up an email account using the export server but none could be set up. Her thought was that the export is not set up to be a mobile server. I may attempt to call AOL though we all know what that would accomplish.

    I'm not sure if its possible to reorient aol.com to export.imap.aol.com so at least they would be on the same server. I am receiving unbelievable amounts of spam from spoofed addresses that can't be unsubscribed, suspect that was from a purchase via IG though it is unmanageable as I have to delete them on both servers to get rid of them, I'm unclear from reading the spam comments if this has caused an increase in spam, I take it none is going to the bulk folder anymore.

    Anyone else experiencing this? Any thoughts? Thanks to all.

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