# [SOLVED] Outlook shows billions of messages in inbox



## kencoburn (Dec 15, 2007)

Outlook 2010, Windows 7

I use Outlook 2010 for 3 email accounts (see attachment). Recently I have noticed that there is a number in brackets next to the Inbox entry that appears to indicate that I have 4,294,967,295 emails in my Inbox which is clearly nonsense. I have accessed my email accounts using my web browser and there are no emails waiting to be downloaded. Can anyone explain what causes this problem and how to fix it?

P.S. I have blanked out my email addresses to stop spanners from getting access to these accounts.


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## etaf (Dec 28, 2008)

*Re: Outlook shows billions of messages in inbox*

cant see attachment 
the number will be unread messages - as far as outlook 2010 is concerned - nothing really to do with you email accounts via a web browser 
you can mark any email read or unread 

I sometimes find if i'm using folders and POP access that can happen and just right click on the folder and mark read


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## kencoburn (Dec 15, 2007)

*Re: Outlook shows billions of messages in inbox*

Here is another go at adding the attachment.


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## etaf (Dec 28, 2008)

*Re: Outlook shows billions of messages in inbox*

wow 
what happens if you right click and mark as read

i have had a few people on Btinternet recently - get all thier messages downloaded onto the pc - 5 or 6 times - which then shows 10's of 000's new messages

how many are actually in the inbox would you say


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## kencoburn (Dec 15, 2007)

*Re: Outlook shows billions of messages in inbox*

Strange things are going on. When I reopened Outlook and downloaded emails it showed that I had (1) message. When I opened the email in Outlook the ( ) number when back to (429496295).


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## Glaswegian (Sep 16, 2005)

*Re: Outlook shows billions of messages in inbox*

Just a quick thought - you could try using these switches to launch Outlook

- Outlook.exe /cleanprofile
- Outlook.exe /resetfolders

Might help to clean up.


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## kencoburn (Dec 15, 2007)

*Re: Outlook shows billions of messages in inbox*

I tried both the command line 'fixes' but Outlook.exe /cleanprofile produced an error message that the arguments was not valid. The other 'fix' appeared run (no error message) but did not fix the problem. You reply did give me an idea and so I went to Control Panel > Programs and Features and selected Microsoft Outlook Professional 2010 and ran the "Repair" option hoping that that would fix the problem. Unfortunately that was not the case.

I then searched the Registry to see if there were any instances of the number 4294967295 - for no particular logical reason and was surprised to find that there were quite a few entries which had this number in the Data field (see attachment). However, as far as I can tell, none relate to Outlook. :ermm:


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## kencoburn (Dec 15, 2007)

*Re: Outlook shows billions of messages in inbox*

A search on the Internet revealed that 4294967295 is the highest number you can get using 32-bits. I don't think that helps though.


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## kencoburn (Dec 15, 2007)

*Re: Outlook shows billions of messages in inbox*

Here is a little bit more information that my help. When I have unread emails the number in brackets is always one less that the number of unread emails. For example, if there are 3 unread emails the number is 2. Consequently when there are no unread emails the computer has a problem with displaying one number less than zero.


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## kencoburn (Dec 15, 2007)

*Re: Outlook shows billions of messages in inbox*

I found the answer to the problem on the Microsoft Support Forum which I will show here for future reference. 

With Outlook closed run the inbox repair tool scanpst.exe against the data file. The location if this file varies depending on your version of Outlook.

Outlook 2013
32-bit Windows; C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\
64-bit Windows; C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15\
64-bit Outlook; C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\

Office 365 Home Premium / Outlook 2013 Click to Run
any Windows; C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15\ 

Outlook 2010
32-bit Windows; C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\
64-bit Windows; C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\
64-bit Outlook; C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\

Outlook 2007 
32-bit Windows; C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\
64-bit Windows; C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12\

Outlook 2003 
32-bit Windows; C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\<locale ID>\
64-bit Windows; C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\<locale ID>\

Outlook 2002/XP 
C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MAPI\<locale ID>\

Outlook 2000 
C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MAPI\<locale ID>\NT\

Outlook 97 / Outlook 98 
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Windows Messaging\

You will need to browse for your outlook.pst file. If you need help, Google "where is my outlook pst file located in windows [your version of Windows]"

If it finds/fixes errors, run it again, until it finds no more to fix (I had to run it 4 times).

That worked for me. Good luck!


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