Emails disappearing from users inbox

Question

I have a situation with a user that I'm currently unable to explain.

The user is reporting several emails have vanished from within her folder structure. I am able to see said emails arriving in both the antispam and the tracking logs, so I know they were actually received. I am not able to locate the emails in the users inbox; I've sorted and I've searched and I've come up with nothing.

I thought perhaps the user may have accidentally deleted the items in question, however a quick search through her deleted items dispelled that theory. I also simulated an accidental delete and was able to see the item I deleted in deleted items. Along with a few thousand other deleted items... she never clears her deleted items out it seems.

Has anyone come across this type of issue before? Can anyone suggest how I might get to the bottom of this?

We're running Exchange 2013, She is accessing via Outlook 2016 and iOS (Iphone).

Thanks in advance for any input :)

Most likely user error. It's easy to drag&drop accidentally to any directory. Search through them all. — Esa Jokinen, Jun 16 '17 at 16:23
Ive searched all directories and also used the search with 'all outlook items' selected... cannot find the items in question. — John, Jun 16 '17 at 16:59
Items accidentally deleted in iOS can be found seconds later in 'Deleted Items'. — John, Jun 16 '17 at 16:59
In our case such "missing" emails where often "auto archived" or the user has a local rule which did move the mails or deleted them. So check also these two "issues". — BastianW, Jun 18 '17 at 19:38

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 16 '17 at 17:03

Create a temp mailbox and copy forward all the incoming email from the user mailbox to temp mailbox. After some time compare if the emails match. Missed emails most probably means corruption on mailbox or even in a DB (rare situation). If you see that the issue really exists and is not end user issue export the mailbox data to a pst - remove the mailbox (be careful not to delete the ad object!!!) - recreate the mailbox and import the pst back.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 17 '17 at 12:55

1

If the issue continues happening, you can enable Mailbox Audit Log to track this issue.

answered Jun 17 '17 at 12:55

Sue.J

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Emails disappearing from users inbox

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