How to fix the wrong number of unread emails flag in Outlook?

224

I have an annoying problem in Outlook 2013. My inbox is flagged with "1" unread message, but this is not the case. Even when I empty my inbox folder, this bold "1" stays next to my folder, new as it contains a new message.

I've tried to "empty" it, to "clean" it, to "mark all as read" it. Nothing works.

Any tips?

Pierre Watelet

Posted 2013-04-04T12:12:58.093

Reputation: 4 269

4If your email is hosted on exchange or ofice 365 outlooks's in conflict with the Exchange server. Log into the OWA and view that folder, and magically Outlook gets corrected to the server's state. – Ben Plont – 2014-11-10T22:45:32.633

3I've the same problem ... sometimes "2 unread" ... but no mail inside a folder – Konrad – 2013-06-26T07:34:21.780

Answers

359

Following works for me.

In the “Search Current Mailbox (Ctrl+E)” box, type: read:no and hit Enter.
When it shows “Find More on Server” link, click it. Then the unread email(s) should appear.

EDIT: Works with Outlook 2016 as well

enter image description here you can see the image reference for your further help.

Deqing

Posted 2013-04-04T12:12:58.093

Reputation: 4 107

2Steps 1 and 2 worked beautifully! Thanks!!! I still had to right-click & click on "Mark all as read" to get rid of the number. – John Waclawski – 2016-06-17T13:51:05.327

18This is clearly a workaround as it requires a server roundtrip instead of making Outlook work as expected. This requires a fix. – Nestor – 2016-07-21T13:31:51.963

10@Nestor: True, but a fix can only be provided by Microsoft, not by the SuperUser community. – Heinzi – 2017-03-24T07:24:30.260

2@Prashant Make sure you're not just clicking the "Unread" link below the search box but actually clicking typing in the text "read:no" into the search. – Sergey – 2017-05-31T17:13:44.037

1This worked for me, but after marking it as read I had to restart Outlook twice before the unread count updated. – Soren Bjornstad – 2017-07-10T14:36:31.270

1I had two mail box configured and when followed this way it was selecting the unread mails from the other mail box too. So instead of selecting All Outlook Items in step 2 I had to select Current Mailbox and that has worked. – Alex Raj Kaliamoorthy – 2018-03-15T19:23:17.510

1If you click the "unread" button among the search buttons, the search parameter is "isread:no". For me, it returned different results than "read:no". "read:no" turned up the message I was trying to find, "isread:no" did not. I did not have to use the "find more on the server" link. – Michael – 2018-04-13T13:29:29.440

1This didn't work for me using Outlook 365 via my browser. However the answer below "Mark all as read" did work. – Selah – 2018-04-30T13:57:19.863

This worked for me as well, but like Soren Bjornstad, after marking it as read, I also had to restart Outlook twice before the unread count updated. – T-Heron – 2019-07-15T20:40:40.813

1This trick still works, 4.5 years later, and over 3 years after @Nestor 's comment pointing out this needs to be fixed... – Joel Balmer – 2019-09-16T10:34:33.373

I've managed to fix this by going to the web access, right-clicking the problematic folders and selecting "mark all as read". After this, Outlook stopped displaying wrong unread messages count.

Yan Sklyarenko

Posted 2013-04-04T12:12:58.093

Reputation: 691

6This is the only method mentioned in here that managed to resolve the issue for me. – adamdc78 – 2014-11-03T19:45:11.073

@Deqing's answer works for me, but I additionally have to restart Outlook. – CJ Dennis – 2016-11-15T05:39:17.760

Run

outlook.exe /cleanviews

This cleans the internal viewstate and should resolve the problem.

WARNING: Running this command will also reset any custom views!

Ken Christensen

Posted 2013-04-04T12:12:58.093

Reputation: 485

4Warning! It solved my problem, but it also cleaned/deleted my custom made views! So back it up if you have any. – mivra – 2014-07-21T12:15:11.953

1Not only did this not resolve the issue for me, but it actually made the counts worse (from 19 unread in a folder with 0 to 52 in one case). I also tried the /cleanips with no luck. – adamdc78 – 2014-11-03T19:36:17.350

Had to close outlook first and navigate to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15 – Trevor – 2014-12-01T20:17:57.823

11-1 for this being a rather drastic/destructive solution (and also apparently doesn't work for everyone). – devuxer – 2015-06-01T18:50:07.100

Cleared out the phantom unread emails in my folders however my inbox still showing 8 unread and empty – P. Roe – 2014-06-06T23:58:28.690

I tried "marked all as read" at first and it did not work so I disabled the "Use Cache Exchange Mode" then "marked all as read" and bingo!

I later re-enabled "Use Cache Exchange Mode"

morpheus

Posted 2013-04-04T12:12:58.093

Reputation: 211

3The cleanviews command and read:no search did not work for me, but toggling cache mode did. I notice it's been happening more often after my service provider migrated from local hosting to cloud-based. – rutter – 2015-04-30T14:27:51.220

For those who do not know where to do it (like I didn't know too): https://goo.gl/VL58Q8

– Ev0oD – 2017-02-02T08:12:47.347

I haven't tried the "outlook.exe /cleanviews" command, but I fixed my Outlook by disabling Cached Exchange Mode and then re-enabling it.

You can set it under your Account Settings. There's an option of "Use Cached Exchange Mode"

HSuke - Work

Posted 2013-04-04T12:12:58.093

Reputation: 61

on a microsoft forum they said to go to start>run>type outlook/cleanips but it says no such command so i navigated in cmd to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15> and typed there outlook/cleanips (but close outlook first) and voila it worked.

Majed

Posted 2013-04-04T12:12:58.093

Reputation: 41

This made things worse for me, went from 3 phantom unread to 35. /cleanviews did nothing at all. – Frater – 2014-11-10T00:18:48.897

I had similar issue with a unread email count of more than 4 billions.

When looking the counter it shows the 4 billion unread message and when looking into the footer I notice it is negative.

I tried all the other answers solution and even finding a way to disable caching, the counter was 0 but when I re-enabled it the counter came back to 4 billions.

The only way I found was to delete the local OST file (I put in in the bin until I was sure I would not loose anything). To do it properly I followed the steps:

Check the footer that the status of the folders was "synchronized".
Closed Outlook
Delete the OST file (let it in "Trashbin").
- Location of file is: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook
- filename is <your-email>.ost e.g. john.doe@domain.com.ost
Launch Outlook, the OST file would be re-created and all email from the mailbox downloaded again
The unread counter is now reliable again
Checked that all email are properly downloaded and no issue found
Delete the old OST file from the trashbin

The step 7 can be done after few days or weeks if you believe you lost something. In my case I found nothing and retrieved all my outlook items and deleted the old OST the same day.

This solution can be applied if you're sure the Exchange Server has always the full content of your mailbox.

рüффп

Posted 2013-04-04T12:12:58.093

Reputation: 575

Similar to the answer provided by @Maged, you can do the following:

Close Outlook
In a command-prompt, go to one of these directories (whichever one has outlook.exe):

a. C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15

b. C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15
Run "outlook/cleanips".

WEFX

Posted 2013-04-04T12:12:58.093

Reputation: 899

I tried everything above with no success. What worked for me was to select the folder with the incorrect unread message count, right-click, and select "Empty Folder". Although the folder was already empty, this got rid of the unread messages counter.

Blake

Posted 2013-04-04T12:12:58.093

Reputation: 1