Outlook Syncing Problem with Gmail

Question

For many years, I have used both Gmail and Outlook to manage my e-mails. I prefer Gmail for filing and sorting and Outlook for reading, drafting and sending.

For some time, I have had problems with missing e-mails in Outlook which is not updating all the e-mails from my Gmail account, to which it is linked.

When clicking the Update Folder option, Outlook goes through the motions and reports Completed but, far more often than not, it doesn’t update at all.

Following extensive internet searches over the last year, I have reloaded the Gmail account in Outlook, more times than I care to remember. Because of the large number of e-mails it takes absolutely ages to sync but never manages to sync everything, which I only find out during subsequent searches.

Unfortunately, they each report different things. To wit: Microsoft 365 Outlook (version 2610 Build 16.0.20527.20088 64-bit) reports a total of 199,266 items in the All Mail Folder. Gmail reports a total of 141,637 e-mails but when turning off Conversation View the total increases to 200,193.  Given the number of times that I come across missing e-mails the difference of  927 out of 200+k seems very small.

All previous attempts to resolve this have failed and I reluctantly gave up. However, today I have lost/wasted hours trying to find an old e-mail in a folder labelled Health Insurance which I wanted to forward. Therefore, I would like to try again to resolve it, once and for all.

The label in question in Gmail which showed 89 e-mails only showed 4 e-mails in the related Outlook. folder. After clicking “Update Folder” the number increased to 6. No matter how many times I have clicked “Update Folder”, it is stubbornly stuck at 6.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

BTW: I have tried to use the new Outlook but find it totally counter intuitive with many missing features, so have reverted to the Old Outlook, with which I am very familiar, at least until I resolve this syncing problem. Interestingly, however, the same folder showed 50 items

Answer 1

Hi, JohnTCI

The Health Insurance folder is the clearest example to investigate, rather than the overall mailbox totals. I wouldn’t ask you to repeat another lengthy account rebuild.

Here are some suggestions you can try:

In Gmail, open Settings > See all settings > Labels and confirm Show in IMAP is checked for Health Insurance. This controls whether Outlook can access that label.

In classic Outlook, right-click your Gmail account’s top-level folder, select IMAP Folders > Query, select Health Insurance, and choose Subscribe if it isn’t already subscribed.

Next, open Health Insurance and select View > Reset View. It is recommended that you try this to rule out filters hiding downloaded messages. This resets that folder’s customized view.

If it still shows only six messages, please share any synchronization error and whether one specific missing email appears in Outlook’s All Mail folder. Please omit personal information.