Exchange mails not showing

tamer Abdelrahman 1

i have two accounts (a@xyz .com and b@xyz .com). Three months ago, a user complained that he did not find his emails after three weeks . When i tried to solve the problem i found that i can see his mails by searching both on outlook and in OWA but in OWA there was no search bar and the user b could locate all his emails unlike user a. Please note that both users exist on the same database. Any clue?

no retention policy or archiving policy applied

1 answer

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,046 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-01-05T04:26:08.153+00:00
Hi @tamer Abdelrahman ,

When i tried to solve the problem i found that i can see his mails by searching both on outlook and in OWA but in OWA there was no search bar

What's the version of your Exchange server?
May I know how did you perform the search in OWA without the search bar?
As per the search results in Outlook, have you checked if they are still in the original folders?

Besides, you may try reparing the problematic user's mailbox by running the command below and see if it can help:

New-MailboxRepairRequest -Mailbox user1@contoso.com -CorruptionType FolderView

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tamer Abdelrahman 1 Reputation point

2022-01-05T06:35:33.887+00:00

i search on outlook not OWA
then i wrote the command

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,046 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-01-05T09:58:33.007+00:00

Hi @tamer Abdelrahman ,

As regards to the command, we can view the result using the command below:

Get-MailboxRepairRequest -Mailbox user1 | Format-List

Or you can just wait for a few minutes and then check if the issue persists.

i search on outlook not OWA

Thanks for the clarification and sorry for the misunderstanding in my post earlier.
Have you checked if the missing mails are visible in OWA? If yes, please open the problematic user's Outlook, go to File > Account Settings > Account settings, select the account and see if it's configured to be running in Cached mode with the caching time frame set to be quite short, try adjusting it to a longer time frame and see how it goes after restarting Outlook. In case it doesn't work, it's also suggested to clear all customized views using the following steps:

Close Outlook.

Press Win+R, type "outlook /cleanviews", press Enter.

If you meant the mails are missing in both Outlook and OWA, as mentioned earlier, could you check the location of the messages in the search results to verify if they are moved to a different folder?

tamer Abdelrahman 1 Reputation point

2022-01-05T10:19:06.537+00:00

the same view on OWA --> not all mails is shown (3 weeks)

Get-MailboxRepairRequest -Mailbox user1 | Format-List

RunspaceId : be09c412-e51b-4e08-9b50-30b3b03f4290
Identity : 5234db78-5b5f-4c76-90fc-187a7c41f58c\686359d6-c3c6-48a6-8d7b-bc07b06bd251\e87d7e01-e170-4dfb-923d-8fa75a110363
Mailbox : fb0892da-13d0-488e-9547-05c7fd50a886
Source : OnDemand
Priority : Normal
DetectOnly : False
JobState : Succeeded
Progress : 100
Tasks : {FolderView}
CreationTime : 1/5/2022 8:31:28 AM
FinishTime : 1/5/2022 8:36:11 AM
LastExecutionTime : 1/5/2022 8:36:11 AM
CorruptionsDetected : 0
ErrorCode :
CorruptionsFixed : 0
TimeInServer : 00:00:00.0150000
Corruptions :
IsValid : True
ObjectState : New

RunspaceId : be09c412-e51b-4e08-9b50-30b3b03f4290
Identity : 5234db78-5b5f-4c76-90fc-187a7c41f58c\28ee04fe-c62d-4f9d-9cea-407b5fd9e6f4\e6ebaec9-745f-4e4e-a6b8-f4d5bd14546e
Mailbox : fb0892da-13d0-488e-9547-05c7fd50a886
Source : OnDemand
Priority : Normal
DetectOnly : False
JobState : Succeeded
Progress : 100
Tasks : {FolderView}
CreationTime : 1/5/2022 8:33:09 AM
FinishTime : 1/5/2022 8:36:11 AM
LastExecutionTime : 1/5/2022 8:36:11 AM
CorruptionsDetected : 0
ErrorCode :
CorruptionsFixed : 0
TimeInServer : 00:00:00.0150000
Corruptions :
IsValid : True
ObjectState : New

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,046 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-01-07T09:06:51.103+00:00

Hi @tamer Abdelrahman ,

From the command output, no corruptions were detected.

How about the mails location? Have you had a chance to check if the missing mails showed up in the search results are located in their original folders? This helps narrow down if these mails are being automatically moved by anything.

tamer Abdelrahman 1 Reputation point

2022-01-08T06:16:21.37+00:00

when i search about missing mails, it appear in INBOX folder

tamer Abdelrahman 1 Reputation point

2022-01-08T08:25:54.527+00:00

i am sorry , i chose current folder (inbox) and then i searched , i did not find any mail

i can not find missing mails , it may be deleted

how did it delete , i did not apply any policy or archivivng any mails?

there is command to detect which action server take to delete mails after three weeks?

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,046 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-01-10T02:05:53.387+00:00

Hi @tamer Abdelrahman ,

i chose current folder (inbox) and then i searched , i did not find any mail
i can not find missing mails , it may be deleted

So you mean the missing mails are actually cannot be found within the mailbox, right? Then how about the "Deleted Items" folder and the "Recoverable Items" folder? You may refer to this document for instructions about how to look for the deleted items in Outlook.

As per your concern about the command to detect the action that delete mails, as far as I know, there's no command available for this. We can enable mailbox audit log on this problematic mailbox to record who(owner, administrator or delegate) deleted the mails, but seems like it doesn't help in this situation.

I can understand that you've already checked the retention policy, but may I double confirm if you checked it by running the following command?

Get-Mailbox <UserName> | Select RetentionPolicy

By the way, has the user by accident enabled "AutoArchive" in Outlook? See Archive older items automatically.

tamer Abdelrahman 1 Reputation point

2022-01-10T09:31:25.267+00:00

C:\Windows\system32> Get-Mailbox x@y.com | Select RetentionPolicy
Creating a new session for implicit remoting of "Get-Mailbox" command...

RetentionPolicy

xyz

[PS] C:\Windows\system32> Get-RetentionPolicy xyz

Name RetentionPolicyTagLinks Guid

xyz {Never Delete, Personal never move to archive} d9af3f71-6fe9-408e-b296-3448f9e4be6b

tamer Abdelrahman 1 Reputation point

2022-01-10T09:32:24.94+00:00

i discovered that emails is hidden even if i search via current folder (inbox)
emails did not disappear

tamer Abdelrahman 1 Reputation point

2022-01-10T09:56:03.607+00:00

when i see the storage for mailbox (1.5 G from 2 G) but no showing mails after 3 weeks on OWA

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,046 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-01-13T06:21:49.487+00:00

Hi @tamer Abdelrahman ,

From the command output, there's no retention tags which seem to be related to "3 weeks".

i discovered that emails is hidden even if i search via current folder (inbox)

As you mentioned that "when i search about missing mails, it appear in INBOX folder", you meant if changing the search scope to "Current Mailbox" or "All Outlook items", the missing emails can indeed be found with the folder show as "Inbox", right?

In order to further confirm the location of the missing mails, please run the Search-Mailbox cmdlet to search a missing message and export the search results to a target folder. Download and extract the attachments from the target folder, the folder path of the message can be viewed in the CSV file:

Search-Mailbox -Identity "user1" -SearchQuery "Subject:TestMessage01" -TargetMailbox "administrator@contoso.com" -TargetFolder "User1-Test" -LogLevel Full

tamer Abdelrahman 1 Reputation point

2022-01-13T08:57:17.35+00:00

in server mail 1:-
Search-Mailbox -Identity "user1" -SearchQuery "Subject:TestMessage01" -TargetMailbox "co@xyz .com" -TargetFolder "Use
r1-Test" -LogLevel Full
WARNING: The Search-Mailbox cmdlet returns up to 10000 results per mailbox
if a search query is specified. To return more than 10000 results, use the
New-MailboxSearch cmdlet or the In-Place eDiscovery & Hold console in the
Exchange Administration Center.

RunspaceId : cf0774e4-9079-4af1-98a8-befd41f64021
Identity : xyz.com/admins/user1
TargetMailbox : xyz.com/Users/co
Success : True
TargetFolder : \User1-Test\user1-1/13/2022 8:47:58 AM
ResultItemsCount : 0
ResultItemsSize : 0 B (0 bytes)The search has Succeeded.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the message sent to co@xyz .com is (without attachment)

Started by: XYZ\Administrator Start Time: 1/13/2022 8:47:58 AM Size: 0 B (0 bytes) Items: 0 Results: XYZ\CO Errors: None Operations performed: Messages were copied to the target mailbox. Query: Subject:TestMessage01 Search Dumpster: True Logging: Full Sources: (1) XYZ\USER1

See attachments for additional logging information when full logging is enabled.

tamer Abdelrahman 1 Reputation point

2022-01-17T07:25:56.237+00:00

waiting your advice

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,046 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-01-17T09:46:14.683+00:00

Hi @tamer Abdelrahman ,

For the command below, would you please replace the search query to make it match your case? Otherwise no results would be returned. For example, you can change "TestMessage01" to the subject of one of the problematic messages instead.

Search-Mailbox -Identity "user1" -SearchQuery "Subject:TestMessage01" -TargetMailbox "co@xyz.com" -TargetFolder "Use r1-Test" -LogLevel Full

tamer Abdelrahman 1 Reputation point

2022-01-18T09:07:33.683+00:00

i did . but i copied the result and modify real name to another
be sure that i wrote the real account name

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,046 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-01-19T09:15:43.403+00:00

Hi @tamer Abdelrahman ,

But still no results can be found, is that correct?
If so, could you have a look at the statement below which has been mentioned in my post earlier and see if I've misunderstood anything here?

As you mentioned that "when i search about missing mails, it appear in INBOX folder", you meant if changing the search scope to "Current Mailbox" or "All Outlook items", the missing emails can indeed be found in the Outlook desktop client with the folder show as "Inbox", right?

tamer Abdelrahman 1 Reputation point

2022-01-20T07:52:33.047+00:00

yes ,
when i choose "Current Mailbox" ,some mails is shown
every day mail received from 21 days is hidden automatically

as i sent you the result of your comment 6 ago
i wrote the real accounts name but the result with another names

in server mail 1:-
Search-Mailbox -Identity "user1" -SearchQuery "Subject:TestMessage01" -TargetMailbox "co@xyz .com" -TargetFolder "Use
r1-Test" -LogLevel Full
WARNING: The Search-Mailbox cmdlet returns up to 10000 results per mailbox
if a search query is specified. To return more than 10000 results, use the
New-MailboxSearch cmdlet or the In-Place eDiscovery & Hold console in the
Exchange Administration Center.

RunspaceId : cf0774e4-9079-4af1-98a8-befd41f64021
Identity : xyz.com/admins/user1
TargetMailbox : xyz.com/Users/co
Success : True
TargetFolder : \User1-Test\user1-1/13/2022 8:47:58 AM
ResultItemsCount : 0
ResultItemsSize : 0 B (0 bytes)The search has Succeeded.

the message sent to co@xyz .com is (without attachment)

Started by: XYZ\Administrator
Start Time: 1/13/2022 8:47:58 AM
Size: 0 B (0 bytes)
Items: 0
Results: XYZ\CO
Errors: None
Operations performed: Messages were copied to the target mailbox.

Query: Subject:TestMessage01
Search Dumpster: True
Logging: Full
Sources: (1) XYZ\USER1

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,046 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-01-25T09:45:08+00:00

@tamer Abdelrahman ,

when i choose "Current Mailbox" ,some mails is shown

And these mails are located in the Inbox folder, right?

If this is true, that's quite weird that no results are returned in the output of the Search-Mailbox cmdlet. May I know if you have replaced "TestMessage01" with the subject of one of the mails that can be found when choosing "Current Mailbox" in your command?

tamer Abdelrahman 1 Reputation point

2022-01-26T07:11:20.503+00:00

i do not understand you

where can i find sent items that you mean

when i choose the sent folder , i found mails that sent from (20-jan 2021)

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,046 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-01-26T07:20:48.747+00:00

@tamer Abdelrahman ,

Sorry for leading to the misunderstanding. Actually by sharing the screenshot above, I intended to show you how to check the folder location of a mail in your search results, that is to check the text below the date, or hover over the mail and you would see "In Folder:<folder name>". Below is another example which shows a mail located in Inbox:

tamer Abdelrahman 1 Reputation point

2022-01-26T09:11:37.647+00:00

done
i searched current folder (inbox) the same result

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,046 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-01-28T08:51:52.31+00:00

@tamer Abdelrahman ,

i searched current folder (inbox) the same result

Do you mean when searching in Inbox, you can also see some missing mails, right?

Just got quite confused here as whether the missing mails can show up in the search results doesn't have a consistent answer in our previous discussion.

"when i search about missing mails, it appear in INBOX folder"
"i chose current folder (inbox) and then i searched , i did not find any mail. i can not find missing mails , it may be deleted"
"i discovered that emails is hidden even if i search via current folder (inbox), emails did not disappear"
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Exchange mails not showing

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RetentionPolicy

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