So, my problem was specific to my host Liquidweb but I imagine that others are having similar problems so here is what happened and how I fixed it. I migrated hosting providers for my email steph@clockworksites.com from Hostgator to Liquidweb ( a great host BTW). Once all my emails & folders had been moved on the host I repaired my Outlook 2013 (office 365 version) for the new host (mail.liquidweb.com).
Then all the problems started. I could send emails just fine, but receiving emails became an issue. They would appear in my web mail on the host but not in Outlook. I spent 4 hours and 2 days trying to figure it out. I finally got frustrated and deleted my Outlook account for that email address entirely and set it up as a POP account for incoming mail which allowed me to receive emails. But here is the catch, all of my folders disappeared and would not reappear.
The host tried fixing my folder permissions on their end but no resolve and every help article I saw told me to go to tabs (like “tools”) that simply do not exist in Outlook 2013. Very maddening! Eventually, I switched back to an IMAP account (deleting my old account again) and the same issue happened. All my folders began to sync but I could no longer receive emails into Outlook…again.
I right clicked on my inbox within Outlook and selected the IMAP folder which brought up a window with a button that said “query”. When I hit the button is displayed all the folders I was subscribed to. Since my inbox was not receiving emails I hit “unsubscribe” to my inbox and hit apply, then I subscribed to it again and voilà! Success!!!
I believe that POP accounts for receiving email will not work for many 3rd party mail services if you need to sync folders. Try IMAP and unsubscribe, then subscribe again.
Remember also, there is a trick in Outlook to test for 3rd party extension conflicts by opening Outlook 2013 in safe mode by holding down the alt button and then opening Outlook which disables all 3rd party extensions that may be messing with your send / receive.
Also, a note about calling Microsoft, there are so many departments, make sure you get to Outlook help and not Exchange. Exchange will try to assist you but they are awful at solving Outlook problems. The number to call for Outlook is 1-800-642-7676. They are not 24/7 though. Listen to the prompts carefully and select the correct one for Outlook only. It’s confusing.
Some ways others have searched for this article are as follows:
- Problems with syncing mail folders and Outlook 2013
- IMAP Sync issues with Outlook 2013
- POP sync problem in outlook 2013
- Can’t sync folders in outlook 2013
Can send email but not receive email for outlook 2013