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
    2022-11-14T18:41:50+00:00

    AOL and the outlook program,

    I had moved messages into separate folders and was down to around 45K, it was stable for a while then I caught it cycling again (a few times recently). One of my PCs locked at some number and wouldn't move back up -- restarting outlook didn't help. So I deleted the .ost again and it built up.

    This time I moved more messages, down to about 25K. Seemed ok, but then I noticed one was climbing... down. I closed outlook and reopened it, it was back at the ~25K instantly (guess I caught it before they saved it), and it's stayed there (AFAIK a few days). But I still don't trust them.

    I've had this ID since the 90's and hate to have to change it. I'm also one of the idiots who pays for it (originally I kept the paying account so my parents could get help -- they needed a lot of hand holding), but for now I'm still paying. I am getting some discounts/freebies that more or less cover it.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-11-14T18:51:13+00:00

    Same here with AOL, not stable and potential loses so I am for the moment just using aol.com, which, with a little learning, is not terrible.

    Has anyone spoken to MS about this, not as a technical matter, but it seems that AOL is intentionally (or at least negligently) interfering with Outlook as an email client. I imagine that is quite complex legally but as a practical matter if MS saw the level of difficulty we are having if they might contact AOL/Yahoo.

    Alan

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-12-01T11:56:41+00:00

    Still the same, no solution?

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-12-02T11:21:37+00:00

    The other day one of my folders (small, under 100) could not do a search. Checked indexing status and I had over 20K items remaining to be indexed? Wondered why it was reindexing -- thought maybe the main index had just rebuilt. BUT the inbox was complete.

    I just checked now and had about 12K remaining to be reindexed.. and then the number went up. Inbox looked complete.

    SO I checked the 5 folders that I had moved <10: messages (each) to. Mostly filled on one PC; no the other 4 were suspiciously at exactly 2000; the other one was growing. Checked later and the second one was growing. So the claim that folders under 10K would be exempt and help is prob'ly wrong, Not definite because at this point, unless/until I get the main inbox under 10K, they can claim that that is what triggered the wipe-out/rebuild.is due to inbox being too kigh.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-12-17T12:19:36+00:00

    Just caught one of my other IDS, with 2460 emails, cycled back to 1000. In no time, it was back to 2460. It IS using export.imap.aol.com (although it didn't need to -- apparently I had changed all of my accounts to use that).

    So this cycling is happening regardless of the size.

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