One message keeps disappearing from my IMAP folders

Frank Macintosh 51

I posted this question at the address below, but was advised to post here instead:

[https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/one-message-keeps-disappearing-from-my-imap/25935e2f-e526-4c3f-9791-aed33dbabf51

In Outlook 2013, I have an IMAP account connected to Gmail. I often work with the All Mail folder so that I can see my recent incoming and outgoing messages. One particular message sent yesterday afternoon was not present this morning, but it was present yesterday. It did not appear in the Trash folder. I found it in Sent Mail and copied it to All Mail. It appeared momentarily but then promptly disappeared. I replicated it in Sent Mail using Ctrl+C Ctrl+V, then copied the replica to Inbox. Again, it was removed after an instant. Furthermore, it could no longer be found in Sent Mail. It still did not show up in Trash. No Outlook or Gmail rules can explain this.

When I access Gmail via its webmail interface, I can see the message just fine. I captured the text of it just in case, but I am baffled by what could cause such an insistent stamping out of this one email across my folders no matter what I do to try and preserve it.

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,051 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2023-01-24T08:43:04.4733333+00:00
Hi @Frank Macintosh ，

One particular message sent yesterday afternoon was not present this morning,

So this is an email sent by you, right?
Have you tried sending another message out and see if the issue can be reproduced?
When you checked it via the webmail, do you mean the message can be found in both the "All Mail" and the Sent folder?

Please click on the Send/Receive tab, hit "Send/Receive All Folders" or press F9 and see if the message can show up.

If it doesn't work, go to File > Account Settings > Account Settings, select the Gmail account, click More Settings > Advanced, make sure the checkbox of "Do not save copies of sent items" is NOT selected:

With this confirmed, I'd recommend try resubscribing the All Mails folder in Outlook and see how it goes:

Click on the “Folder” tab, click on “IMAP Folders”.

Hit the “Query” button,

Click on the [Gmail]/All Mail, unsubscribe it, hit Query and then subscribe it again.

Click OK, then click "Send/Receive All Folders" to see the result.

Should the issue persists, you can create a new Outlook profile , add the gmail account into it and check if the message can show properly. This helps eliminate whether it's an issue with a broken profile.

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Frank Macintosh 51 Reputation points

2023-01-23T15:32:43.27+00:00

Hello, Yuki Sun,

The issue cannot be reproduced with any other message. When I use the browser to access Gmail, the message appears only in All Mail, not Sent. It was a message to an external party, not to myself. Synchronizing the folder does not solve the problem.

I am confused by your suggestion to disable "Do not save copies of sent items". It will impact all sent messages and duplicate outgoing messages on the Gmail server.

I resubscribed to All Mail and it is taking a very long time to build up again. Note that in addition to resubscribing, I need to manually use Outlook to recreate the All Mail folder, as it disappeared after unsubscribing and syncing.

After All Mail folder was rebuilt, it still did not contain the message, which I can still see in All Mail when accessing Gmail via a browser.
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Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,051 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2023-01-24T08:42:53.8366667+00:00

Hi Frank,

As regards to the "Do not save copies of sent items", I mentioned about it because the issue involves the Sent Items folder. But since you said it cannot be reproduced with any other mails, it doesn't look like an issue with this setting. Also agree with you on that clearing this option may lead to the duplicated outgoing mails issue, so, just ignore it and keep your current setting as it is.

When I use the browser to access Gmail, the message appears only in All Mail, not Sent.

Have you noticed if there are any other outgoing messages that only appears in All Mail?
How about performing a search within the entire mailbox and see if the message can be found?

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,051 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2023-01-31T01:09:21.0066667+00:00

Hi Frank,

Just circling back to follow up with this issue. Have you had a chance to search within the whole mailbox for the mail?

Frank Macintosh 51 Reputation points

2023-02-03T15:03:07.2633333+00:00

Hi, Yuki Sun-MSFT,

My apologies for the delayed response. When I visited this page before signing in, I don't recall seeing your more recent responses. I also checked my email and didn't find any notifications. I will try to more carefully monitor my use of this website to see if these observations are accurate. In fact, this very first paragraph was added as an "Edit" but after submitting it, it didn't show up even after I reloaded the webpage. There may be update issues with this new "video2.skills-academy.com" site that were not present in answers.microsoft.com.

I have seen the originally posted problem with two other messages since I posted my question. The last one was just right now. I tried searching the whole mailbox and found that it shows up in Sent Mail but not All Mail. I actually observed it disappearing fromAll Mail.

I did notice something this time. It afflicts a message which I accidentally deleted then reversed the deletion using Ctrl+Z. Maybe that doesn't update the server properly? (I don't recall if Ctrl+Z was applied to the previous two messages to which this problem applied).

As I said previously, copying the message from Trash to All Mail makes it visible again in All Mail, but only for a moment. It promptly disappears again. Alternatively, if I copy the message from Sent Mail to All Mail, it disappears from both Sent Mail and All Mail.

Afternote: Accidental deletion is common because there is a distinct delay in updating the message list after some events and operations. Clicking the "X" icon to delete a message doesn't always the intended message.

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,051 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2023-02-07T08:45:49.8633333+00:00

Hi Frank,

Do you perhaps have any 3rd party add-ins installed in the Outlook desktop client?
And is this account configured on other devices aside?

Since it's a randomly occurred issue, it could be quite difficult to troubleshoot. Given this, I'd recommend trying to post in a Gmail forum as well to see if there are other users who have seen similar issues.

Frank Macintosh 51 Reputation points

2023-02-07T15:03:00+00:00

No app that interacts with Outlook. But as I said, it might affect messages that I inadvertently delete and then undelete using Ctrl+Z.

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,051 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2023-02-09T08:13:04.8033333+00:00

Hi Frank,

it might affect messages that I inadvertently delete and then undelete using Ctrl+Z.

But this cannot be reproduced steadily, right? I've also tried testing on my end by deleting a mail from Sent Items folder and then undoing it via Ctrl+Z, but the message can still show up in the "All Mail" folder...

Frank Macintosh 51 Reputation points

2023-02-10T03:49:30.4233333+00:00

No, it's not reproducible. I am grasping at possibilities.

Yuki Sun-MSFT 41,051 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2023-02-13T07:27:52.77+00:00

No, it's not reproducible.

Then it could be more difficult to troubleshoot further since it happens quite randomly ...
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