Disappearing Focused Inbox In Outlook for 365 Desktop client

Question

I have a single user who's outlook desktop app Inbox keeps reverting to the All/Unread view instead of Focused/Other and the option to show focused inbox being blank (They prefer the Focused inbox). We have tried all the most, if not all, the fixes I could find posted across the forms but I'm hoping someone here has had a similar experience. Our users primarily access their email through the Outlook for 365 desktop client via a RDS/Terminal Server but they also have access to their mail through OWA. Our current version info is: Version 2205 (Build 15225.20204).

Fixes we have tried:
-Office Repair Quick and Full (We obviously cannot try this repeatedly due to the down time it was cause for our other users so it is relegated to our maintenance windows)
-Re-authenticating to outlook and office (This worked occasionally after repeating the steps including clearing their credentials from credential manager but the issue would always come back)

 -Disabling "Store my Outlook Settings in the cloud" in outlook options  
 -Creating a new mail profile in windows (This has been the  most reliable fix so far however the past week it will only last about a day before focused inbox is gone again)  
 -Using PowerShell to to set focused inbox to True, verified that it is still set to true when it reverts back to the All/Unread state.  

Other info
-On their phone and in OWA focused inbox is always present and they have never had any issues with it disappearing there.
-We are a hybrid AD environment with users being created locally and then synced to 365 through Azure AD Sync

Answer 1

Was this resolved? We are experiencing same challenges and do not have capacity to troubleshoot as valiantly. What help out there to resolve this? It's annoying and disrupting productivity.

Answer 2

Hi @Joseph Mehrer ,

Welcome to our forum!

Re-authenticating to outlook and office (This worked occasionally after repeating the steps including clearing their credentials from credential manager but the issue would always come back)

Do you mean that sign out and sign via File>Office account? Or remove your accounts and add it again?

I have a single user who's outlook desktop app Inbox keeps reverting to the All/Unread view instead of Focused/Other and the option to show focused inbox being blank.

Do you mean that the "Show Focused Inbox" option is disappeared?
Do other user in your organization encounter the same issue?

Based on my test on Outlook 365 with Microsoft 365 account/outlook.com account, the Focused inbox can be displayed normally. As I know, In Outlook for Windows, Focused Inbox is available only for Microsoft 365, Exchange, and Outlook.com accounts. What's your account? Please make sure your account is one of three.

Based on the above, please check if the "Show Focused Inbox" option is enbaled in View tab, as shown in the below image.

In addition, I found a similar issue: when you use Microsoft 365 account and switch from the Inbox to other folders, such as the Sent Items folder, and then you return to Inbox, the Focused Inbox option disappears. Additionally, the option on the View tab to turn on or off the Focused Inbox also disappears. If it is your issue, please refer to resolution and workaround in the below image:

For more information, please refer to: Focused Inbox disappears when you switch folders in Outlook.
(Note: Serious problems can occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Before making changes, back up the registry to restore it in case something goes wrong.)

Hope the above help!

---

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".
Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

---

Answer 3

Do you mean that the "Show Focused Inbox" option is disappeared?
Do other user in your organization encounter the same issue?

-----Correct, the users will open outlook for the day and their inbox will be sorted by All/Unread instead of Focused/Other. If you go to view->Show Focused Inbox the section of the ribbon where focused inbox should be has the text for |Show Focused Inbox| but the icon is not present.

-----This was originally only affecting one user but this morning I had another user report that they were having the same issue.

This issue is only occurring in the "Outlook for 365" desktop app. This is not affecting users that use the outlook web application.

We do not feel the Auto Discovery registry fix applies as the issue only occurs when launching Outlook for the first time that day. If focused inbox is present when the user launches outlook for the first time that day then it will be there all day. If they open outlook for the first time in day and their inbox shows All/Unread they will not be able to get it back without troubleshooting. steps.

Do you mean that sign out and sign via File>Office account? Or remove your accounts and add it again?

Yes we tried signing out this way including deleting their credentials from Windows Credential Manager.