Outlook states you have unread mail but shows an empty folder

Problem

Outlook shows the message “we didn’t find anything to show here.” when looking in a folder that shows unread items.

Screenshot of outlook 2013 showing no emails in inbox.

Cause

The views in outlook can become unresponsive causing it to not display the emails.

Solution

Reset the view in outlook

  1. Open outlook and select the folder you are having issues with.
  2. On outlook ribbon click “View”
  3. Under current view category, click the Reset View
Reset views butting in the view ribbon.
Screenshot from Outlook 2013

148 comments

    1. My problem was in the Junk folder so I used right-click, empty folder, yes delete. That worked for me.

      1. Same here. I had 125 unread for some reason. Clearing my junk folder made the unread number go away. Crazy.

  1. In Account Settings/(my account)/Server Settings/More Settings/Advanced, uncheck “enable cached exchange mode”, exit outlook. Count will be correct.

    1. Unticked Cached Exchange Mode (which had mysteriously been enabled!) and I got my mails back. Wasted about an hour fiddling around before I saw Steve’s suggestion – cheers!

    2. Wow, Steve, thank you very much! That checkmark was annoying, and your solution worked. Thank you again!

  2. That did not fix the problem. Inbox says I have unread mail but not in the unread folder. Also, can’t find any unread in the Inbox even though it says I have some messages unread.

    Thanks for the suggestions though!!

    Ed

  3. Reset View Did not work for me , But I moved all inbox items to newfolder and restarted my outlook.

  4. Cool manual! I just didn’t figure out what is it for, but definitely not for: Outlook states you have unread mail but shows an empty folder

    And Steve: Nice that you’re trying to help, but even if I consider myself an experienced user of this crap OS, I didn’t have the mind power to guess which of the ton of settings are you reffering to, so your advice was also useless.

    Jan

    1. Jan, your first paragraph makes no sense at all and your second paragraph shows you to be a dunce. Nice job there.

      M

  5. Hi!

    This worked perfectly for me. I can now see my Unread mail.

    Many thanks for such a simple solution.

    Graeme

  6. I had the same problem; after reading the previous fixes–not trying them since they don’t work, I checked my iPhone and saw the culprit. I read the message on the device and in Outlook the unread message went away. I read the message yesterday in the Outlook client but it was apparently showing as unread on my device. Strange.

    Drew

    1. This worked for me as well. Once I opened the unread mail on my phone it had shown on my computer as been read and the 1 beside inbox despaired.

  7. I was having the same problem. I fixed it simply by updating my Search Folders. Categorised Mail, Large Mail, and Unread Mail. This seemed to work for me.

    Regards
    Aaron

  8. All you have to do is move the mails to another folder (Test) and then click on “Click here to view more on Microsoft Exchange” which will show the unread mails saved on server. Select those unread email and mark as read.

    Abhi

    1. You can use this option without moving to a new folder.
      Whilst the folder with the supposed unread mail is highlighted just type read:no in the search box.
      Chances are they have been read on another device.
      Works a treat.

  9. My workaround:

    In the “Search Current Mailbox (Ctrl+E)” box, type: read:no
    and hit Enter.

    Then when it shows, “Find More on Server” link, click it. The unread email should appear. Make sure you click on it if it doesn’t automatically switch to read.

    Click the “X” in the search box to clear the “read:no” search — it does not work if you do any other operation, including clicking on another box, at this point!

    Frustrating, but fixable, thankfully.

    1. Thank you, Nathan Pralle! I have Outlook 2013 and your solution worked whereas OP’s Reset View did not.

    2. Beautifully simple solution to a frustrating issue that’s been bugging me for ages. You, sir, are a genius!

    3. This was the option that worked for me. Thanks Nathan.

      Note: Inbox said 2 messages were unread but when I did this, 4 actually showed up as unread and in the Inbox. (Could be one was in the ‘inbox’ of the archive folders, I didn’t look into it that much).

    4. Thank you very much, Nathan Pralle! Your solution worked when none of the others did in my case.

  10. Just create a new folder, move everything to it an then in the Inbox use “Clean Up Folder” option, close outlook, re open it and move back mails from the provisional folder to inbox.

  11. I right clicked on the mailbox, went to Properties, and hit clear offline items and that seemed to work. Good luck!

  12. Steve Skeptic is right. Use his method (reproduced below):

    In Account Settings/(my account)/Server Settings/More Settings/Advanced, uncheck “enable cached exchange mode”, exit outlook. Count will be correct.

  13. Big thanks – the search and click solution worked for me. Had the most frustrating few weeks with unread emails in 2 folders..

  14. We also had this problem. It was caused by calendar items in a mailbox without an agenda. Outlook doesn’t know what to do with those items. Right clicking “mark all items as unread” on the top folder solved it.

  15. Go to File > Account Setting > open your Exchange account > Adjust “Mail to keep online” to “All”, restart Outlook to check the result.

    This steps has resolved the issue for me.

  16. The “read:no” options worked for me. Only suggestion I have is if you have many folders and only one or two of them has the issue, instead of selecting “search current mailbox” click the dropdown and select the folder that incorrectly shows unread email. Then follow the rest of the instructions.

  17. The solution is in the view settings. Make sure in the setting that hide files for deleting is not the selected. choose view all files. And all your files will start showing, before I got this I have done scanpst and a whole lot of other things. Andit is just a simple solution

  18. > Select “Inbox”
    > In folder ribbon, Click “Folder Properties”
    > Check “Show number of unread items”

    Close the outlook and the problem will be solved. It worked in my case…;)

  19. select folder in question and then click on View Tab in Outlook. Then click on Change Views and select IMAP folders. The messages will appear like magic!

  20. All I did was right click ‘Inbox’ and hit ‘Mark All as Read.’ I knew that I had no mail, but wanted that Inbox indicator gone.

  21. How easy was this! Thank you. Outlook repairs had me doing all sorts of rubbish things. Your knowledge is appreciated.

  22. When I unchecked the box, the fix worked perfect for me. That one deleted item that does not exist has been driving me insane!!

    Thanks much…Stacey

  23. I had 1 message in my inbox but could not find any emails I have not addressed.
    My finding were; An end user created an calender event, she must have rescheduled a new event without deleting the original invite. That was all it was. I deleted that first event and all is good.

    IT Staff with Southern States Coop. Inc.

  24. Additional note that might be helpful. I had a folder with symptoms that looked just like this. I had moved a folder from an IMAP account to a pst account in outlook 2016. Uh Oh, a lot of emails disappeared, but it showed a couple of thousand unread. I could convert to PDF and that at least retrieved the info. Tried all the fixes listed here as well as elsewhere. No Joy!.

    Since I had a safety copy in the PDF, I said “caution to the wind” and just dragged it to another IMAP based account. Ta-Da, the “lost” emails showed right back up.I hate it when sync means “sunk” 🙂

  25. I was having a headache with missing messages. My fix was actually right next to where he said. change view settings, It was set to hide marked for deletion and I changed that to imap and wham everything appeared. I changed for all folders

  26. If you are trying to view mails from a exported .pst file click on the folder you want to view the mails and in view tab under change view menu select IMAP messages

  27. I just the same problem and I was panicking. I thought I had lost my e-mails. Reset view was the answer! Many Thanks!

  28. HOLY CRAP! I have been working on this issue for over 4 hours. Have tried everything that every one ELSE has said to do. Re-Indexed. Message Pre-view. Etc.

    All I had to do was click the “Reset View”.

    OMG! Thank you so much!

  29. Reset view is greyed out for me. Shows 1 item in Junk, there is nothing there.
    This is an IMAP/SMTP account, not an Exchange account.

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