My outlook account had a bunch of emails vanish instantly and is also not recieving (some) new emails.

Question

Earlier this week, two of my email accounts under outlook had a little over half of their inboxes vanish. The emails are nowhere to be found. Archive, junk, spam, deleted, they're just gone. Furthermore, both accounts are having trouble recieving new emails. Some new emails get through and others don't. For example, the email for a concert ticket I bought won't come through but one from my mother on her phone is recieved with no issue. One of the email accounts is under a hotmail.com domain and the other is an outlook.com.

Answer 1

Dear Evelynn

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Q&A Community. I'm happy to assist you . Please follow these steps to resolve the issue of missing emails and failure to receive new messages:  

Step 1: Check and Manage Rules  

• Open Outlook Classic:   Go to Home > Rules > Manage Rules & Alerts under the Move group.  
• For New Outlook or Outlook.com:   Go to View > View Settings > Mail > Rules.  
• Disable or delete any rules that move or delete emails.  

Step 2: View Archive Folder  

• Check the Archive folder for missing emails.  
• If found, right-click and select Move > Inbox or another folder.  

Step 3: Recover Deleted Emails  

• In Outlook Classic:   Go to Folder > Recover Deleted Items under the Clean Up group.  
• This feature is not available in New Outlook or Outlook.com.  

Step 4: Clear Offline Items  

• In Outlook Classic:   Right-click the affected folder > Properties > Clear Offline Items.  
• Restart Outlook to resync with the server.  

Step 5: Rename Outlook Data File  

• In Outlook Classic:   Go to File > Info > Account Settings > Account Settings > Data Files tab.  
• Select your account > Open File Location.  
• Close Outlook, rename the file, then reopen Outlook to rebuild data.  

Step 6: Check Automatic Email Forwarding  

• In Outlook.com or New Outlook:   Go to View > View Settings > Mail > Forwarding and IMAP.  
• Disable any forwarding rules.  

Step 7 : Verify Mailbox Storage  

• If your mailbox is full, new emails will not arrive.  
• Check storage under Settings > General > Storage and delete unnecessary items.  

Step 9: Review Focused Inbox and Other Tabs  

• Switch between Focused and Other tabs in Outlook and Outlook mobile.  

Step 10: Run Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant (SaRA)  

• Download and run SaRA.
• Select Outlook.com and follow prompts to diagnose missing emails and sync issues.  

Step 11: Secure Your Account  

• If emails vanished suddenly, check for unauthorized access:  
• Change your password immediately.  
• Enable Two-Factor Authentication in Microsoft Account Security.  

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