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

Question

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?

Answer 1

Following works for me.

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

EDIT: Works with Outlook 2016 as well

you can see the image reference for your further help.

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

Run

outlook.exe /cleanviews

This cleans the internal viewstate and should resolve the problem.

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

Answer 4

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"

Answer 5

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"

Answer 6

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.

Answer 7

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:

1. Check the footer that the status of the folders was "synchronized".
2. Closed Outlook

3. 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
4. Launch Outlook, the OST file would be re-created and all email from the mailbox downloaded again
5. The unread counter is now reliable again
6. Checked that all email are properly downloaded and no issue found
7. 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.

Answer 8

For Outlook for Office 365 search for isread:no in the top search bar. This will show all your unread messages.

Answer 9

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

1. Close Outlook

2. 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

3. Run "outlook/cleanips".

Answer 10

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.