Outlook for Android- Searching old emails

Question

Outlook for Android- Searching old emails

Solymar 0

Hopefully someone can help me out with this. I have a samsung s24, and using the Outlook app for my hotmail account. This never used to be an issue, but started in the last year or so.

Anytime I try to do a search for an email that's more than a few months old, it wont show up. Only time this works is if i scroll down the emails and press the load more messages button. Then it will find emails in the newly loaded emails. But If I want to find an email from years back, this is obviously not practical. Conversely, if I search old emails from Outlook on my desktop, it finds all the old emails.

Ive never had this issue before, and can't seem to find a solution. Appreciate any advice I can get. Thx.

2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Chloe-L 1,585 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hello @Solymar.

Thanks for using Microsoft product and posting in the Microsoft Q&A.

We understand how frustrating it can be when a core function like searching for old emails doesn't work as you expect, especially when it works perfectly on your desktop. We appreciate you bringing this to our attention.

The behavior you're describing is a known limitation of the Outlook app's design on mobile devices, including your Samsung S24. This is a common practice across many mobile email clients, not just Outlook. The Outlook app on your phone is designed to be efficient. To save valuable storage on your device and minimize cellular data usage, it only synchronizes a limited number of recent emails for offline access. This means that a search can only find results within the emails that have been downloaded to your device's local cache.

When you scroll down and tap "Load more messages," you are manually instructing the app to download more of your email history, which then makes those new messages searchable. Your desktop Outlook, however, doesn't have these limitations. It's connected to your entire mailbox on the server and can search all your emails, regardless of how old they are.

Unfortunately, there's no setting you can change in the app to force it to download your entire mailbox. The app's design prioritizes performance and resource management on your phone. :(

However, your feedback is crucial. Microsoft listens to user feedback to improve its products. The more users report this specific issue, the more likely it is that our development team will address it in a future update. Here's how you can submit your feedback directly through the app:

Open the Outlook app.
Tap your profile picture in the top-left corner.
Tap the Settings gear icon in the bottom-left.
Go to Help & feedback.
Select Send Feedback and describe your issue. Be specific and explain that you need the ability to search your entire mailbox, not just recently synced emails.

We truly value your input and apologize for this inconvenience. Thank you for using Microsoft Outlook.

Warm regards

Chloe L. | Microsoft Q&A Support Specialist

Solymar 0 Reputation points

2025-08-15T21:57:34.95+00:00

Appreciate your response. The weird thing is that this is a fairly new issue for me. I had a samsung s20 for several years, and I was always able to search and find old emails thru the Outlook app on my phone. So how come now, it's not able to do it? Did something change? This seems like it should be a bigger issue. Being able to search up an email from last year, is something my phone should do.
Chloe-L 1,585 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-15T22:17:59.59+00:00
Hi @Solymar,

Thank you for getting back to me.

That's an excellent question, and you've hit on a key point that many users have noticed. You're right, this wasn't always the case, and your experience on the Samsung S20 is proof of that.

Over the last year or so, Microsoft has made significant changes to the core architecture of the Outlook mobile app. The goal was to make it faster, more responsive, and more efficient in terms of battery and data usage. To achieve this, the app's default sync behavior was modified.

Older versions of the app used to have a more generous sync window. On many devices, it was set to "all" by default, or you had the option to change it to "all." This meant the app would download and index your entire mailbox, making all your old emails searchable on your device.

Newer versions of the app, especially with recent updates, have moved away from that "all or nothing" approach. They've shifted to a model that syncs a limited number of messages in each folder and then intelligently fetches more as you scroll. This is an effort to improve performance and reduce the app's footprint on your phone.

You're correct, this is a major inconvenience, and it seems like a step backward for a core feature. We completely understand your frustration. The app is supposed to intelligently fetch older emails when you search, but as you've noticed, it doesn't always work as seamlessly as the old method. It's a trade-off between speed and full functionality, and we've heard from many users who prefer the older approach.

Since this is a design change and not a bug, the only way to get this functionality back is for Microsoft to hear from enough users that this is a critical feature they need. Your feedback is more important than ever. By using the in-app feedback option, you're directly contributing to the discussion and helping to show that this is a priority for users.

We genuinely appreciate your patience and your sharp observation. It’s insights like yours that help us understand how these changes impact your daily work and why certain features are so important. If you have any other questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out. We're always here to help.

Warm regards

Chloe L. | Microsoft Q&A Support Specialist

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To assist others who might have similar questions and to help us improve our support system, we kindly encourage you to "Accept the answer" if it successfully addressed your concern. Accepting an answer lets other users know that this solution worked for you, and it also helps us track the effectiveness of our support efforts.
Solymar 0 Reputation points

2025-08-24T19:40:25.9666667+00:00

I am suddenly now able to search for old emails. Did something change recently? How is it available to find suddenly?
Chloe-L 1,585 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-28T17:10:02.33+00:00

Hi @Solymar,

That's fantastic news! Thank you so much for the update. I'm genuinely glad to hear that the issue has been resolved and you can now search for your older emails again in the Outlook app on your Samsung S24.

Since this was an issue you were dealing with for a significant amount of time, it's very likely that a recent system update to Outlook or a server-side change on our end has resolved it. Microsoft regularly releases updates that contain crucial performance improvements and fixes for a variety of issues, including how the app syncs and indexes your mailbox. It's common for a long-standing bug to be fixed as part of a larger update package.

It's a great outcome, and thank you again for letting me know.

Warm regards

Chloe L. | Microsoft Q&A Support Specialist

================================================================

To assist others who might have similar questions and to help us improve our support system, we kindly encourage you to "Accept the answer" if it successfully addressed your concern.

Answer 2

Marcelo Mendoza 155 Independent Advisor

Hi Solymor,

Thank you for reaching out I apologize for the inconvenience this search issue that is causing you but no worries I’m here to help you. Are you getting the same issue with the other mobile devices or just for the S24?

Please try these steps to fix the issue:

Check the force full mailbox sync in outlook tap the profile icon and select settings now select the hotmail account and select mail settings now tap download email from and choose all or customer range then enable the sync all folders and background data. Now just incase the sync for many account is missing we must trigger the manual sync for searchable emails navigate to your inbox or target folder scroll down to the bottom tap load more messages until the desired frame loads do not close outlook during this process once email appear search again they will b indexed locally. Now enable the server side search from the outlook tap search bar then tap query when the results appear tap on search on server if not visible use filters set the date range to include the older periods.

I hope this information is helpful. If you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please reach back out and I will be more than happy to assist you.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

Regards,

Marcelo Mendoza | Microsoft Community Support

Solymar 0 Reputation points

2025-08-18T15:02:11.59+00:00

Hi Marcelo, thanks for your comment. Unfortunately I cant find any of the settings you are speaking of. Are you sure you are these setting exist? The last person before you said that searching old emails is not possible anymore. You say to change things in the settings which I cannot locate at all. So maybe you can double check and clarify. Thanks.
Solymar 0 Reputation points

2025-08-18T15:03:30.61+00:00

Hi Marcelo, thanks for your comment. Unfortunately I cant find any of the settings you are speaking of. Are you sure you are these setting exist? The last person before you said that searching old emails is not possible anymore. You say to change things in the settings which I cannot locate at all. So maybe you can double check and clarify. Thanks.
Marcelo Mendoza 155 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2025-08-19T17:23:21.4333333+00:00

Hi Solymor,

Thank you for the response my apology it took a while to get back to you. Upon checking now from my end and verifying the issue there is a limitation for outlook app in android since it can only receive emails not older than 30 days this is because the mails days to sync option can only be configured up to 30 days only so Outlook app for Android does not support full mailbox sync. I understand this could be very inconvenient if you were searching for very old emails because the only work around is to tap the option of load more messages. However this issue has been raised to Microsoft under outlook user voice and if you would like to add to it you can go to this website https://outlook.uservoice.com/

I hope this information is helpful. If you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please reach back out and I will be more than happy to assist you.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

Regards,

Marcelo Mendoza | Microsoft Community Support

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Outlook for Android- Searching old emails

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