Still using (and recommending to all my students) Thunderbird (and Apple Mail on a Mac). I will switch to Outlook as soon as there is a unified inbox for IMAP accounts. Without that feature this piece of software is a no go.
Here’s the story of an odd Outlook 2016 bug that you might run into. Microsoft has been urging everyone with an Office 365 license for the Office programs to update to Office 2016. It’s a modest upgrade at best, as the programs are virtually identical to the 2013 versions, but it feels good to get the latest version for free, right? When you click “Update Office” in the banner that appears in the Office programs, you’ll start a process that takes 10-30 minutes and is usually painless. (Except when Outlook throws a fit and requires a rebuild of the mail profile, which seems to happen about 10% of the time.) Some Outlook 2016 users have been running into a bug that was apparently introduced by an update in April. Outlook starts up normally but something doesn’t seem right. It’s like all the folders have disappeared.
This is what Outlook looks like normally. Notice the left column with Inbox and the subfolders.
That’s called the “Folder Pane.” This is what Outlook looks like when the Folder Pane isn’t visible on the left. Outlook has been randomly starting like this for some people. There’s nothing to click on for Inbox or Sent Items or Favorites.
They’re gone! Clients make choking noises and reach for the phone to call me. That it has tracked down the bug and will fix it in a patch soon. In the meantime, it’s easy to fix as long as you remember that this is an issue and you don’t panic because you’re afraid that all your folders are missing. If the folder pane disappears, click on View / Folder Pane and check “Normal.” The Folder Panel will immediately appear. It may disappear again the next time Outlook is started, until Microsoft releases the patch that fixes it permanently. It’s one of those problems that only affects a few people on a few computers, and only some of the time.
There’s a where people have been complaining about this since the April update that apparently introduced the problem. There are anecdotes claiming that this problem has appeared on a few of ten identical Surface laptops lined up next to each other – but only a few.
I’m telling you,! I have tried all thatI have the pane OK but lost all my personal folders of references letters etc. Quite important about 8 in all. I can see a list of them in HOME MOVE but I can’t open themwhether I could drag and drop I don’t know. The only personal folder in the Folder Pane is one that I thought had been deleted (with great difficulty) and replaced ages ago. I have a list of a million usual things eg drafts sent items etc, TWICE, occupying the whole Folder Panel.
I am not a techie but I have tried everything, every button, but to no avail. Could they have deleted the content without saying are you sure you want to delete etc?? I did click something that asked if I wanted to revert to the original setting (something like that)and in desperation I didbut the list of my personal folders is still there in MOVE The most important thing of all is keeping your stuff safe! I must have already spent a couple of hours on this.
Any ideas folkshelllpppp! A lot depends on the type of mail service that’s set up in Outlook. For online mail services – like Outlook.com, Gmail, and Microsoft’s business Office 365 mail – then you can compare what’s in the Outlook program with what’s in webmail. If necessary, you can start over again in Outlook and set up the mail from scratch and it will re-download everything from online.
Outlook refers to mail “profiles” with all the mailbox info. You can set up a new profile from Control Panel / Mail. But if your mail is an older POP3 account, then your Outlook folders are likely stored in a PST file on your hard drive. And they’re notoriously fragile, so bad things can happen.
That would put you on the trail of looking through backups of the PST file. Preferably with IT help, because it’s definitely not a friendly, intuitive process. Sorry I don’t have an easy answer. Mail is complicated. This has happened to me again today 25.2.17.
It has been happening on and off for a few months. I wish all of the Windows 10 problems and Outlook problems had such as easy fix. There are so many ongoing issues with Windows 10 and Microsoft. At times I cannot even access my own computer – it is not unusual to turn it on and not even be able to log in because some update or other has changed the settings, or because an update is underway and everything else has stopped dead in its tracks until it is done. At times I have even not been able to open Word docs – i.e. I am not even connected to the internet and I still can’t access my files.
This is both terrifying (i.e. Fear that I have lost access to ALL my documents) and also damaging to my business and reputation (because I cannot do my work until Microsoft is finished doing whatever it is doing to my computer).
This can take an hour or more. I keep hoping that these Windows 10 teething problems will be fixed, but I am really over it and am buying a MAC.
Yesterday, I was working in my Hotmail account, through All folders were there and everything normal. I then went home to my personal computer an hour later and logged in through the website again, and then all my folders with e-mails were gone, including the sent folder and spam folder.
I only have the Inbox showing. If I click on an e-mail and then click on “Move to”, the drop down shows all my folders. Yet, I can’t see them to the left side of my Inbox, nor access them. Not sure what is going on.
Hope this can be fixed and I can “turn on” so to speak everything that is missing, so it is viewable again. I sense they may not be lost, but incredibly frustrating and I’m pretty worried thinking about losing everything. I use Mac Outlook 2016 and subscribe to Exchange 365.
Every few hours a message appears in Outlook “Unsynchronized items in (Domain name) will be deleted do you want to continue. It says “You have changed the mailbox used by (Domain name). If you accept this change you will lose any items no synchornized. To accept changes click ok”. Obviously if I click ok then it empties out all of the folders then about 10 mins later re-syncs from exchange 365 however this is a constant issue. I have tried totally deleting the account, deleting the profile and adding an account from scratch from Exchange 365 therefore only populated by Exchange but still have the same ongoing problem. Would anyone have any ideas how to resolve this please, the only other device this is on is my iphone but I have deleted this from scratch too with the same error.
It’s amazing all of the crap we now have to go through because microsoft, in its desire to be on top, regularly releases updates full of bugs which cripple us. The solutions are generally never satisfactory and the amature hacker solution providers end up providing such convoluted approaches to resolving the issues that Microsoft initially created due to its incompetence, that one would end up believing that they worked for microsoft! I AM DELETING OUTLOOK ON MY ANDROID phone for good.
Bye bye microsoft. In my case, my “inbox” sub-folder disappeared/hidden/invisible on my Windows 10 PC even though the “Folder Pane” is visible. As such, I can’t see any of my emails because I can’t click on my “inbox” since it doesn’t exist.
I can’t even search for any emails as it says it doesn’t find it. I can still see my inbox and emails on my Android phone, so I know they’re not lost. Any ideas on how to address this? It’s hard to send emails with attachments through my phone without transferring files to my web drive first. However my issue is a little different. I opened outlook and suddenly left folder pane looks different. The “Favorites” at the top are gone.
And the folders have envelope icons next to them. Different formatting. When I click on View, Folder Pane, there is no option for “Favorites” anymore. Then a few days ago I opened Outlook and it was miraculously restored to the old view. I could see favorites. Folders just had a carrot arrow next to them (no icon).
All was well with the world again! THEN yesterday I opened Outlook and it has changed back to the weird view. I have done nothing different on my end. And have not idea how to change it back. Has anyone else ever seen this? Hi I posted earlier comments that deleting the outlook passwords in Keychain worked well actually it didn’t. I still have the same problem which sounds similar to everyone else.
I get an ‘Unsynchronized items in (my Exchange folder name) will be deleted, do you want to continue. If you accept this change you will lose any items that have not yet been synchronized, etc etc to accept the changes you have made and use the new mailbox, click OK’, so you can then click OK or Work Offline.
I click OK and everything disappears from my Exchange folder including mail and calendar. It doesn’t do it with Gmail set up in Outlook. Nor does it do it using Outlook on Windows or indeed any other Mac Mail or Calendar program. Only Outlook 2016 on my Mac. About twenty minutes of quitting and restarting Outlook it then kicks in reloads exchange again adds in all of the folders, this works for a while then randomly repeats the above anywhere from 10 minutes to 24 hours later agghhh! It’s so annoying, I am now looking at using a separate calendar programme like fantastical 2 and possibly Airmail for Mac but aside from the expense, I liked Outlook as it was all in one place with contacts. I have now tried completely deleting the account and identity from the mac, doesn’t work.
Reinstalling Outlook doesn’t work, deleting passwords from Keychain which relate to Outlook – doesn’t work. It sounds like a similar issue to the above when everyone’s Exchange folder disappears apart from I get the message above with the option to work offline. I even wondered if there was some conflict with my Categories file as they had been upgraded from previous versions of Outlook but am at a loss to find the reason and just think I need to give up. I wouldn’t mind you would think that if you install from the start then everything should be synced anyway as its dragging all of the data straight from the Exchange 365 server anyway so there should not be anything unsynchronized.
Any suggestions much appreciated, thank you. I don’t do Mac work so I’m not sure what you’re running into. There’s a setting in Outlook in Windows that turns off caching for Exchange accounts and sets up a direct connection to the mailbox. That can be slower but more reliable in some cases, and it helps with troubleshooting. In Windows, it’s in the settings for the mail account – there’s a checkbox, “Offline Settings – Use Cached Exchange Mode.” It can be unchecked. You might experiment with that and see what happens. Remember that the result is that Outlook only works when the computer is online.
I have this problem, Literally just got a MacBook Pro this week- installed the Outlook on it- and after 2 days and downloading some updates, I now cannot use my Outlook at all. I am using a Mac, so the option for solution is not avail for a Mac; If I choose View- Reading Pane- the only options I have is right/ below/ hidden There is no unhide option. If anyone has found a solution to fix this for Mac users that would be great, its now October, and if this has been going since April 2018, I cannot believe Microsoft are taking over 6 months to fix such an annoying glitch So far three hours wasted of my life, and there is no way I can now access my emails or my folders. I accidentally clicked on something in the options trying to get my folders back and now see NO messages and see a message saying Nothing in Unintitled Folder. Is one of the leading IT consulting firms in the North Bay, providing computer consulting, network consulting, and IT support to law firms, small businesses, and individuals - onsite in Sonoma County (Santa Rosa, Sebastopol), Marin County (San Rafael), and the Bay Area (San Francisco, Oakland), and remotely for clients all over California. Provides daily computer tips, shopping suggestions, support information, security updates, and much more - written in plain English.
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