outlook telling me more emails are being sent/received than I can see

Joined
Jun 18, 2015
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Hi all,

I'm using outlook and noticing that when it sends & receives emails, the numbers shown in the 'mail activity' pane (bottom left) are much higher than the number of emails I actually send or receive. Any ideas what this could be and if it is likely to be sinister?
 
Joined
Sep 17, 2014
Messages
4,854
Reaction score
241
I have Outlook 2011 (latest version is 14.0.5), and there is a "Junk" folder. Do you check what is in that folder? As one would expect, I receive Junk EMails every day, and get rid of them right away. That of course will take care of the discrepancy in the ones you receive.

The other thing you should do (actually do it from time to time) is to rebuild Outlook's database. Here is a link that explains one way to do that:

https://uknowit.uwgb.edu/page.php?id=22482

The other way is to 1) quit all applications running, 2) press the Option key when launching Outlook, and 3) you will get the second screen described in that link.

After you rebuild it, a copy of the old one is made in that same folder (I believe it is called "Main Identity - backup"). Before deleting that back up one, first quit that "rebuild" process, then launch Outlook like normal. I suspect it will work, but it is using the new, rebuilt database, which is what you want.

To get rid of that backup folder, navigate to your user folder, then your user folder name, then Documents, then Microsoft User Data, then Office 2011 Identities. Once you are in that Identities folder, you should see at least 3 files. One of them is the Main Identify folder (which you just rebuilt), one is the "Main Identity - Backup" folder, and the other is a file entitled "MeContact.plist". You can just drag the "Main Identity - backup" folder to the trash.
 
Joined
Jun 18, 2015
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Thanks for your ideas. I know it isn't junk mail as the option I have ticked is for me to see junk mail marked as such in the inbox. Also, it wouldn't explain the large number of messages being sent out, would it? It is a recent version of outlook.
 
Joined
Sep 17, 2014
Messages
4,854
Reaction score
241
Oops! Made a typo with the version number of Microsoft Office 2011. It should be 14.5.0, not 14.0.5. In case you don't have it, you can get it from here:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=46973

I actually have never looked at such counts, and I rebuild the Outlook database every week, mainly to completely clean out all the EMails I deleted (including ones that were Junk) for the prior week. Hence, I cannot explain the discrepancies you are seeing, especially with EMails sent.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top