cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Disappearing emails from sent box and folders

Historian
Newbie
Posts: 3
Registered: ‎27-04-2020

Disappearing emails from sent box and folders

Hi - I can send and receive email OK, but I can only see emails in my inbox. Nothing in sent and if I file an email in a folder it can't be seen. Settings must be wrong but no idea how to fix - can anyone point me in the right direction?

4 REPLIES 4
Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,918
Thanks: 9,535
Fixes: 156
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Disappearing emails from sent box and folders

Hi @Historian 

A warm welcome to the forums.

You do not indicate what email program you are using nor on what device you are seeing the problem.  It is also important to know - if using an email program (rather than webmail) - what configuration you have used - POP3 or IMAP.

What do you see if you access your mailbox via webmail?  http://webmail.plus.net

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

Historian
Newbie
Posts: 3
Registered: ‎27-04-2020

Re: Disappearing emails from sent box and folders

Thank you replying

 

I'm using my Surface laptop and it's configured using IMAP - I am using the mail program in windows 10, perhaps that's the problem, should I set up in Outlook?

I can see sent messages on the web.

 

Many thanks

Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,918
Thanks: 9,535
Fixes: 156
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Disappearing emails from sent box and folders

Hi,

That helps a great deal!!

Win10 Mail is far from being friendly!  Yes you would be better using "proper" Outlook as shipped with Office 365 (now Microsoft 365) if you have it.

To some extent with IMAP the sent folder is somewhat arbitrary - it is just a folder on the IMAP server.  Depending on which IMAP client first sent an email and saved it to the IMAP server, the folder will be called "Sent" or "Sent Items".

Most IMAP clients are smart enough to look for a folder by either of these names and use it for any items that client sends.

Win10 Email however is as dumb as they come!  It does not do this, instead it makes up its own mind ... and you might end up with two sent mail folders!  In Win10 Mail, you can find such folders by looking under other folders, rather than favourites.  It is a tedious mess!

 

I recommend that you do the following, in this order...

  1. Stop using Win10 Mail - just do not load it, better still remove the mailbox account from the program
  2. Using Webmail, check that there is only ONE SENT MAIL FOLDER
  3. If there are more than two, move everything in the "other" folder (with a blueish folder icon) to the SENT folder (third in the folder list)
  4. Use folder manager to delete the "other" sent folder
  5. Then configure the email account as IMAP in Outlook 2016/19 (or whatever) - this will pick up the correct SENT MAIL folder

Note - there is one small wrinkle!  I have seen cases where a mailbox predominantly established by Webmail does not display correctly in Outlook - either there is nothing in the inbox but the other folders appear OK or the inbox is there, but not the other folders.  This is easily fixed by setting the root folder (see advanced settings) to "/inbox".

If you need help when you get there, just ask.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

Historian
Newbie
Posts: 3
Registered: ‎27-04-2020

Re: Disappearing emails from sent box and folders

Thank you for this. I will try and if I get stuck i'll be sure to be back in touch.

Fingers crossed.