How to fix wrong number of emails on Outlook 2016 by: Sartechgig (Analyn Sarte) I have an annoying problem in outlook wherein my inbox is flagged with “1” or “2” or any number of unread emails even when I don’t see anything unread.

If you continue to face the issue of wrong unread messages count in Outlook, here’s a trick to resolve the issue: In Outlook, right clock on the Inbox folder which has the wrong unread items count, and choose Properties. Click the Clear Offline Items button. Then, execute a Send/Receive All Folders to sync and repopulate the Inbox. One of the common issue that Outlook users face majorly in MS Outlook 2016 is “Outlook inbox showing unread messages” even if messages are not there. This blog elaborates this issue so that users will be able to resolve it. MS Outlook is one of the most common email clients that is used in various organizations. The “Deleted Items” folder now show the total number of messages, both read and unread, in the folder, rather than the number of unread messages. When you change the message count setting for a folder in your “Favorites”, the change applies to the folder in both places: the “Favorites” and the Mail folder list.

Original KB number: 3044375

Symptoms

In Microsoft Outlook, you discover that the server count and offline item count for a particular folder do not match. The following screen shot illustrates this issue.

Cause

This issue occurs when a synchronization filter is configured for a folder.

Resolution

If you no longer require the filter or if you did not mean to enable it in the first place, follow these steps to remove the filter:

1. In the details pane in Outlook, right-click the folder, and then select Properties.
2. Select the Synchronization tab, and then select Filter.
3. Select Clear All, or adjust the filter criteria as needed.

Note

The changes will not be applied until the next Send/Receive operation in Outlook.

More information

Be aware that while Outlook is in Offline mode, the synchronization filter process does not work.

Original KB number: 2768656

Symptoms

If you have lots of items in any single folder, you may experience symptoms such as the following in Microsoft Outlook:

• When you use Cached Exchange Mode or an Outlook data (.pst) file, you notice performance issues when you perform certain actions.
• You experience decreased performance in Outlook if the Inbox, Calendar, Tasks, Sent Items, and Deleted Items folders contain lots of items.
• Calendar performance is inconsistent. For example, meeting updates may not be reflected in the primary, shared or delegated Calendar.

If you have lots of mail folders, you may experience performance issues such as the following:

• Folders are not displayed correctly, or they take a long time to appear, especially in cached mode.
• If your Outlook profile has shared mailboxes and has caching enabled (Download Shared Folders is selected), folder synchronization issues, performance issues, and other problems occur if the number of shared folders per mailbox exceeds 500, as described in Performance and synchronization problems when you work with folders in a secondary mailbox in Outlook. Additionally, errors are logged in the Sync Issues folder and '9646' events are logged in the Application log.
• In extreme cases, if there are more than 10,000 folders, Outlook is very slow to open. This behavior occurs because it takes a long time to enumerate the folders.

Cause

This problem may occur if you have folders that exceed the limit for the number of items per folder or if you have too many folders total. The limits for Outlook 2019, Outlook 2016, Outlook 2013, and Outlook 2010 are as follows:

• 100,000 items per folder
• 5,000 items per Calendar folder

Resolution

Important

Follow the steps in this section carefully. Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Before you modify it, back up the registry for restoration in case problems occur.

If you have folders that exceed the limit for the number of items in an Outlook data (.pst) file or an offline Outlook data (.ost) file, move items from the larger folders to separate or smaller folders in the same mailbox or data file. Optionally, if you have a Microsoft Exchange online archive, you can move items to that archive.

If you have exceeded the recommended limit of 5,000 total Calendar items, use any of the following methods to reduce the number of items that you have.

Method 1

If you have enabled Online Archive Mailbox, archive items to the Online Archive Mailbox.

Method 2

Apply a Retention Policy on the Calendar folder to delete items from this folder. (For example: Any item that is not modified within one year moves to the Deleted Items folder.)

Method 3

In Sync Window Settings, adjust the number of months of data that are synced for the primary shared calendars. To do this, add the following registry keys.

Note

This method applies to Version 1810 or later version of Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise (Click-to-Run).

These registry keys update the sync restriction so that the Cached Mode client downloads fewer Calendar items, even for a Calendar that has multiple years of history on the server. These keys don't clean up older Calendar content that was already downloaded. However, this method can be effective if you're willing to clear offline items and resync your Calendar (instead of bulk deleting old items). If you already have the Calendar in the profile, you have to clear the Offline Items after you set the registry keys and restart Outlook.

To clear offline Calendar items, follow these steps:

1. Open the Calendar pane in Outlook, then right-click the Calendar folder.
2. Select Properties.
3. On the General tab, select Clear Offline Items.
4. Select OK.

Additionally, you can use the Support and Recovery Assistant (SaRA) for Office 365 to diagnose issues that affect Outlook. (The tool works for both programs.)

To download and install the tool, go to the following Microsoft website:

Outlook For Mac 2016 Unread Count Wrong Version

In the tool, run the Outlook Diagnostic under the Advanced Diagnostics section to determine the cause of the performance issue.

More information

Outlook For Mac 2016 Unread Count Wrong Password

To view the Calendar item count, use the Calendar Properties dialog box to check how many items are in a Calendar folder in Outlook Cached Mode.

To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open the Calendar pane in Outlook, then right-click the Calendar folder.
2. Select Properties.
3. On the General tab, select Show total number of items.
4. Select the Synchronization tab.
5. View the count under View statistics for this folder.

Outlook For Mac 2016 Unread Count Wrong Mail

Outlook uses an .ost file only if the Exchange email account is configured to use Cached Exchange Mode. When Outlook is configured to connect to the Exchange mailbox in online mode, an .ost file is not used. If your Outlook client is connected to Exchange in online mode, and you do not have high item-count folders in a .pst file, the performance issue may be occurring on the server.

Outlook For Mac 2016 Unread Count Wrong Text

For more information about Outlook performance issues, see You may experience application pauses if you have a large Outlook data file.