Outlook365 - Sent items missing

Question

Outlook365 - Sent items missing

Allan J. Ashinoff 526

Recently I moved a small business (7 users) to Office 365 Standard after directing their MX to Microsoft and setting up their email accounts. I had no issue backing up their mailboxes, changing licenses from their old versions to their new, connecting to their new post office using the new email addresses and even importing their prior mailbox PSTs into the new profile on the local install. Everyone can send and receive email but I do have a user who appears to have lost access to his sent items from his former mailbox which imported without error.

What I've tried.

switch profiles back his old one to verify the sent items were there (they are)
Export again from the old profile (done 4x over two days), then switch to the current profile and re-import (no sent items all 4x).
Uninstall office completely. Login to Outlook.com as the user and re-download and install office anew, and then attempt to re-import each of the backup PSTs (failed consistently)
Attempted (last ditch) to view ANY of the PST files as as open data file to view the former inbox and its sub-folders, including sent items. In each of those sent items folders I see nothing. Still, in the prior profile I see the sent items???

I've run out of ideas and really need to get this sorted out (naturally he's the president of the company).

Emily Hua-MSFT 27,796 Reputation points

2023-04-24T00:40:47.56+00:00

Hi， As your issue is related to Outlook, I would modify the tag. Thanks for your understanding.

3 answers

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Emily Hua-MSFT 27,796 Reputation points

2023-04-24T00:40:47.56+00:00

Hi， As your issue is related to Outlook, I would modify the tag. Thanks for your understanding.

Answer 1

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,376 Moderator

UPDATE: I've managed a very poor workaround to at least see the Sent items for this user. Instead of creating a PST file I chose to create a CSV file.

Thanks @Allan J. Ashinoff for the share!

Just out of curiosity, have you checked if the size of the exported PST file is seemingly normal?
And what if opening the PST file in the former Outlook profile, is it empty as well?

By the way, what's the type of the former email account? If it's an IMAP account, after opening the PST file, please go to View > Change view > IMAP Messages and see if the items can be seen:

Allan J. Ashinoff 526 Reputation points

2023-04-26T17:28:06.1133333+00:00

The previous account was IMAP. File sizes vary, on the smaller end are 557KB on the larger side are 365,817kb.

Update (and maybe a clue):

Last night I logged into one users web-access outlook. Going through her files I noticed that her folders were populated and that I could see the content.

This morning I asked her to check things, since I wasn't sure what I could have done to impact the environment positively, but her local folders are still empty and those empty folder still had new mail placeholders beside the folder even though there was no visible content.

Frustrating issue.
Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,376 Reputation points Moderator

2023-04-27T01:23:57.9733333+00:00

Hi @Allan J. Ashinoff,

The file sizes all look fine.

And have you had a chance to change the view as aforementioned to see if the contents can be visible in Outlook?

Last night I logged into one users web-access outlook. Going through her files I noticed that her folders were populated and that I could see the content.

Is the new account configured as Exchange cached mode in Outlook? If so, switch to Exchange Online mode and check the result.
Allan J. Ashinoff 526 Reputation points

2023-04-27T16:49:59.4566667+00:00

Hello Yuki-Sun,

I've dealt exclusively with exchange for so long that changing the view never occurred to me. I followed what you said and the content appeared! Of course, its not everything but the major hurdle is passed. Thank you.
Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,376 Reputation points Moderator

2023-04-28T01:18:21.16+00:00

Hi @Allan J. Ashinoff ,

I followed what you said and the content appeared! Of course, its not everything but the major hurdle is passed. Thank you.

My pleasure and really glad to know that it helped!

Based on my research, this happens because the export process maintains the IMAP folder properties which aren’t compatible with a regular PST file or Exchange account. Here's an official article about this issue for reference:
I can't find my email messages after importing from an Outlook Data File (.pst)

By the way, if the reply earlier has been helpful, could you consider accepting the answer to help increase visibility of this question for other members of the Microsoft Q&A community? Thanks!

Answer 2

Hi @Allan J. Ashinoff,

So, you meant for the problematic user, the Sent Items folder is visible in his new Outlook profile but there's no item there although you've tried importing PST to it, right?
Could you try performing a search within the entire mailbox in the new profile using some keywords of mails in the original Sent items folder? This helps eliminate whether the mails were imported into any other folders for some unknown reason.

Export again from the old profile (done 4x over two days), then switch to the current profile and re-import (no sent items all 4x).

Did you export and import the entire mailbox? If this is the case, I'd recommend trying to export and then import the Sent Items folder only and see if there would be any difference:
Selece "Sent Items" folder only when exporting to PST file:

Should the issue persist after re-importing the PST file of the Sent Items folder, another though is to open the PST file in the new Outlook profile via File > Open & Export > Open Outlook Data File:

If the mails can be seen properly, you can select all items using CTR+A, then drag and drop to the Sent Items folder of the mailbox:

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Allan J. Ashinoff 526 Reputation points

2023-04-24T16:40:21.54+00:00

Hello Yuki, I have tried these things, including exporting and importing just the sent items folder. I have scoured every folder to find any of the sent items but they are blank. When I open any of the PST's I've made using Open Data File I do not see any content in Sent Items. Yet, when I switch to the former outlook profile the Sent Items are there. I have tried, a minimum of 4 times, exporting from the old profile and importing to the new and I still do not see the Sent Items. I've gone so far as to uninstall and reinstall office, creating an entirely new profile, same result.

Answer 3

UPDATE: I've managed a very poor workaround to at least see the Sent items for this user. Instead of creating a PST file I chose to create a CSV file. The CSV allowed for the imported data to be seen in the appropriate folder BUT there is no sent/received date on any of the items. When I checked the fields collected there was no sent/received date on any of that content.

Having migrated mailboxes in a full exchange server environment with many more mailboxes and outlook using end-users more than a few times over the years, I'm disappointed with Microsoft that this in issue using MS products. Further, and more egregious, I'm disappointed at Microsoft and its reluctance to address and resolve the matter.

I have access to the source content in its original profile on each system. I have pulled CSV files of the sent items today and have multiple PSTs from each system stored locally and on my thumb drive.

While this shouldn't be happening, I need additional strategies to try to resolve this and its already long past due.

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Outlook365 - Sent items missing

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