What to Do When Some Items Are Missing in Your Outlook Mailbox after Synchronization?

What to do when you find that some items are missing in your Outlook mailbox or OST even after synchronizing it with Exchange Server mailbox? Probably this has happened because of no synchronization or synchronization errors. Synchronization error is a very common problem faced by most of the Outlook users.

Checking for Proper Synchronization

Though Offline Storage Table (OST) offers you the convenience of working offline (Cached Exchange Mode) with MS Outlook, it may cause frequent errors if you do not use MS Outlook application properly. In case of error, you should verify that synchronization of your Outlook OST with Exchange Server mailbox is proper.

If the synchronization is proper, the number of items in your server folders and Offline folders will be the same. You can check this by checking the synchronization properties of the folders. For this, right click on the folder and select Properties. Click the Synchronization tab (it will be present only if you have set up your profile to use offline folders) and see the following fields under Statistics for this folder: Last Synchronized on, Server folder contains and Offline folder contains.

If the synchronization is proper, the number in the field Server folder contains will be equal to the number in Offline folder contains field.

Verifying the Outlook Profile Settings for Proper Synchronization

If the synchronization is not proper, first you need to verify the profile settings by following the steps given below, (steps vary according to the version of MS Outlook).

Steps to Verify Outlook Profile Settings to avoid Synchronization Errors
Outlook 2003	Outlook 2007	Outlook 2010
Go to Tools>E-mail Accounts Confirm that View or change existing e-mail accounts option is selected under the Email section of the E-mail Accounts dialogue box; click Next. Confirm that Mailbox – account name is selected in the Deliver new mail to the following location list. Click the Microsoft Exchange Server object, followed by Change. Confirm that Use Cached Exchange Mode is selected; click Next. Click Finish, click OK.	Go to Tools>Account Settings Confirm that Mailbox – account name is set as default under the Data Files tab. Click the E-mail tab. Click Mailbox – account name followed by Settings. Confirm that the Use Cached Exchange Mode option is selected under the Advanced tab; click OK. Click Close in the Account Settings dialogue box.	Go to File>Account Settings Confirm that Mailbox – account name is set as default under the Data Files tab. Click the E-mail tab. Click Mailbox – account name followed by Settings. Confirm that the Use Cached Exchange Mode option is selected; click OK. Click Close in the Account Settings dialogue box.
Finally, exit Outlook, reopen it and synchronize folders.

OST Integrity Check Tool

OST Integrity Check Tool or Scanost.exe is an inbuilt Microsoft tool to check and repair the synchronization issues of Microsoft Outlook. Usually you will receive error messages when the Outlook application fails to synchronize your Outlook Mailbox (OST) with the mailbox in Exchange Server. You may also find that some files missing in the Outlook mailbox. In that, you can use this tool to check the OST files.

To use the OST Integrity Check Tool, your Outlook needs to be connected to the Exchange Server. While connected to the Exchange Server, the OST Integrity Check tool scans the mailbox folders and items on the Exchange Server. To run the Scanost.exe, quit the Outlook application and follow the steps given below:

1. Double-click Scanost.exe (located at C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\Local ID folder)
2. Go to Profile Name list and click the profile that contains the OST that needs to be checked.
3. Select Repair Errors checkbox.
4. Click Begin Scan.

The OST Integrity Check Tool checks for the OST issues and resolves them. If you go the Deleted Items folder of the Outlook after OST Integrity Check, you can view a message with the subject OST Integrity Check. This is the Scan Log of the OST Integrity Check operation you have performed. It enlists the OST issues found by the OST Integrity Check Tool.

Our discussion about the synchronization shows that we need to have a good technical understanding of the Microsoft Exchange Environment to deal with the issues related to Outlook. Also, it consumes a lot of time and labor. All these difficulties can be avoided if you use a professional tool that can deal with all types of Outlook issues. Kernel for OST to PST is such a tool. convert OST to PST is a comprehensive and easy-to-use tool to deal with all the issues related to MS Outlook.