Outlook Focused Folder

Question

When I log into my outlook, in my inbox, I have 2 folders. Focused and Other. It's been that way for years. Now, when I click on any other folder then go back to my inbox, all I have is an All inbox. When I go to the view tab, the toggle to turn on Focused inbox is not there. The only way I know to fix this so far, is to close my outlook and open it back up. I don't know what changed to make my Focused folder disappear. Can you help?

Answer 1

Hi @Julie Ginsberg,

Based on your description, this is a known issue in classic Outlook for Windows. This can happen when Outlook’s Autodiscover process gets an unexpected response from a third-party server (often an IMAP-style Autodiscover response) instead of the proper Microsoft 365 response. When that happens, Outlook can temporarily treat the mailbox like a non-Microsoft 365 account, which is why Focused Inbox disappears. Also, closing and reopening Outlook can fix it temporarily because Outlook reloads the profile, but the bad Autodiscover result can come back when you navigate around again.

To permanently resolve this issue, the official resolution documented in Focused Inbox disappears when you switch folders in Outlook - Outlook | Microsoft Learn is to contact your web service provider or the web hosting provider of your domain website to make sure the web server isn't responding to the following Autodiscover requests:

• https://<Rootdomain>/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml
• https://autodiscover.<Rootdomain>/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml

If you don't know how to find your domain/web hosting provider, you can refer to Find your domain registrar and DNS hosting provider - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn

Hope this information may be helpful with your concern. If you have any questions or need any further clarification, please leave a comment here and I will be happy to assist you further.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. Hope to hear from you soon.

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