Outlook for Mac: Filter Unread never matches the Inbox badge count

I've looked through the various answers about counts being wrong, but none of them seem to address this issue directly.

I have a current version Outlook for Mac (v16.39 - Office 365)

When I read through my new mail each day, I always wind up with the inbox badge still showing a positive value for unread mail while my Filter Inbox "Unread" shows "no results" (see screenshot).

Is there some categorization of emails that make the badge count valid while not showing as unread for the filter? Is there a way to bring these in line so they both use the same criteria? Thanks

4 Answers

Is this a problem that has only recently occurred? Can this function work normally before? I did the same tests in my Outlook(Version 16.39 20071300) and found that the Filter feature could work fine. As I know, when multiple filter conditions are set, issues like this might happen. In order to further confirm your issue, it is suggested to Clear All Filters first and then choose unread filter to see if it can normally show the correct results. You could also do tests to check if other filter conditions can get the correct results.

If the issue still continues, I'm afraid that there might be something wrong with your Outlook client. Please try to [completely uninstall your Outlook and reinstall it][1] to solve your issue.

[1]: )

I was running into the same issue with Outlook on my Mac. I was finally able to locate the "unread" emails by opening Outlook on my mobile device (iPhone), filtering for unread, and there were the mysterious unread emails that weren't appearing in my desktop Outlook application.

Same issue was occurring for me. Here's how I resolved it:

1. Login to
2. Right Click Inbox
3. Select mark All as read

This sets the unreads to 0 and should update on your Outlook client shortly after.

This is a workaround more than an actual solution. In my case I wanted to see what the unread messages were, before either deleting them/marking them as read. The solution is to simply sort your folder by "Status" in descending order and collapse the "Calendar" category to see the Unread category.