Mail won't retrieve more than 10,000 emails in IMAP account

So what fixed it for me (with AOL at least) was deleting the mail account on mac mail, then when adding the account back I selected add other account>mail account rather than selecting the AOL option. A customer service rep from AOL had me create a one-time password through AOL's website under settings & security (i believe gmail has an equivalent) and added the mail account with my usual email address and the one time password. Everything synced up with some time and im showing 80k+ emails.

LPShanet wrote:

The problem developed at different times with the various clients. So it's not just as simple as a hard limit placed in one place.

A busted update or a new policy rolling through the Verizon AOL server pool can show the same inconsistent-enforcement behavior.

But it’s a Verizon AOL bug/limit/feature. And based on that Microsoft link (both the limits discussed there, and also that this bug/feature/limit is hitting Outlook 365 client, not at all related to mail clients on Apple platforms), it’s seemingly also intended behavior by Verizon AOL.

As for large-scale mail usage more generally? In many organizations, mail is useful for many things. Unfortunately, mail is also one of the best ways known to bury institutional information where new hires can find it. And that problem kicks in far before 10,000 or 150,000 messages.

CRM packages and contacts packages and other such mechanisms are among the alternatives some find useful; tools and apps built for the scale of data involved. Mail rules might help sort and relocate the data, or server-side rules. Yes, it’s all work. Dealing with 10,000 or 150,000 of most anything is.

Here, your choices are to encourage Verizon AOL to raise the limits, or to port your mail elsewhere. Neither is great, of course. Google will happily slurp all your mail. Available tools for other transfers including imapsync tool, which can be used to transfer your mail cache via IMAP to IMAP-elsewhere, too. (Which’ll probably also hit the 10K limit.)

But this is getting all further afield from the original 10,000 message issue, which is that this is an Verizon AOL bug/feature/limit, and nobody other than them can assist with this, save for the mail user reducing or re-hosting.

Ima Poster wrote:

I've no idea where this information is coming from but AOL in the UK are adamant that the problem is with Mac mail and not their servers.

AOL and Yahoo were acquired by Verizon and used to form Oath, which was renamed Verizon Media, and were subsequently sold to Apollo Global Media—also the the owners of the Las Vegas Venetian Casino—and are now operating as Yahoo. That short history so y’all don’t get confused when I reference Yahoo in this thread about AOL:

The following are recent links across mail clients and platforms accessing Yahoo servers…

Here is Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) Outlook meeting the same limit with Yahoo:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/why-is-an-imap-inbox-only-displaying-10000-items/6d15de5f-9047-4b41-9b58-1d8345bbd002

Here is Thunderbird meeting the same limit with Yahoo:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Thunderbird/comments/v4ydu0/10000_email_limit_via_imap_in_yahoo_email/

Here is Microsoft Outlook 2013 and outlook 2016 on Windows with the same limit with Yahoo:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/outlook-20132016-issue-with-yahoo-10000-item-inbox/157bf4c7-d71d-416e-ab24-de10f18f06ba

Y’all have a choice: y’all can find a different mail provider with a higher cap (with or without your own domain name involved), or get or pay Yahoo to raise this limit (contact Yahoo support), or can get your mail down below the cap.

I would like to mention that I installed Thunderbird email client on a Windows computer, configured the imap to my AOL account. It would download only the most recent 10,000 messages in my inbox (or any other imap folder). My conclusion is that this problem is not an Apple-specific issue.

Btw, the AOL rep I spoke with told me that “it (the new 10,000 message limit) is working properly as intended, and you need to use the AOL client to access more messages.”

My current work-around has been to create additional imap folders for archive (such as “inbox-2021-01-03”, “inbox-2021-04-06”, etc. Then use the AOL client to access the main Inbox and move messages to the new archive folders such that any folder contains less than 10,000 messages in the end. A pain to set up, but only the main Inbox needs routine archiving as the archive folder remain static.

Hi,

today I discovered also that many of my IMAP folders in Mac Mail app were restricted to the 10000 limit and many of my old mails were missing in Mac Mail, but not on the Yahoo webpage.

The limitation is most likely imposed on the IMAP server-side and not the Mac Mail app.

Search through Yahoo's documentation I found a workaround that allows downloading of all the emails.

It's just a matter of changing the IMAP settings for 3rd party mail apps.

However I had to delete the predefined "Yahoo" account and setup "other mail account".

I entered my account, one-time generated password, had to wait 10-20 seconds to get a time-out

and then was able to enter the IMAP and SMTP settings.

The main change is for the incoming mails:

export.imap.mail.yahoo.com

https://help.yahoo.com/kb/new-mail-for-desktop/download-email-yahoo-mail-third-party-sln28681.html

This solved my issue - and maybe it might help others in the community.

Hello All,

I have been using AOL mail for over a decade and experience this same problem on all my devices and 3rd party mail apps.

I contacted AOL escallated tech support about this issue, and they said "this is working as intended".

Apparently, AOL changed their imap and pop download limits to 10,000 messages per folder. And they did this without proper advance notice to their free or premium users. They said that their web mail or aol client should be used to access or search any email beyond the 10,000 recent email limit.

I suspect this may be motivated by something like generating ad revenue or tracking revenue through their web mail or app interface, or other economic motivations. This is just my speculation. That's their prerogative - but I think it is irresponsible that they implemented this major change to imap message limit without proper advance notice so that users like me could have more easily transfered/copied all their mail archive out of their system.

Jonny

LPShanet wrote:

<<If Thunderbird, Spark, and Apple Mail clients are all now showing a 10,000 message limit, it’s the mail host setting the limit and not Apple and not the mail clients.>>

Unfortunately, it's not that simple or obvious. Because the limits don't appear in some other apps, nor on AOL's webmail, nor their app. And they are totally unaware of it, and not purposely imposing any limits.

If AOL webmail used the same path as remote IMAP access, maybe.

But if the AOL webmail uses a different path or has different limits, no…

Spark and Thunderbird and Apple mail share ~zilch.

I might have suggested trying a 10K test from Windows, but somebody else already did:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/why-is-an-imap-inbox-only-displaying-10000-items/6d15de5f-9047-4b41-9b58-1d8345bbd002

I’m sure the Outlook 365 app running on Windows is also a problem with Apple’s platforms and mail clients, too. 🙄

Per that last link, reduce the amount of mail, or move your mail to a provider that will host the volume of mail you need, or convince Verizon to increase the AOL limits.

RE: the one-time password—you can do this yourself on their AOL's website. 1. Go to help@aol.com. 2. Find the article called "Create and Manage Third Party App Passwords". 3. Follow the instructions and enter "Mail" as the 3rd party app. A password will be generated that you can use for the one-time login as you re-create your AOL account under "other account' instead of using the AOL button as Sophia lays out above.

I spent a couple of hours on the phone with Apple and tried multiple attempts to resolve the issue then talked to AOL for over an hour and finally got a response from a specialist that the limitation is an internal agreement between AOL and Apple that the emails will be limited to 10,000. The specialist could not give any work around and when I did delete my email account and use the "other" button instead of the AOL button when selecting the type of email it did show the lost emails for a brief period until it finally down loaded all of the emails and only shows the latest 10,000. It does appear to be an Apple issue. The AOL tech support said that there was nothing I could do other than access my emails via their site. And he pointed out that it is also happening on my phone and another computer running an older iOs version. Very frustrating Apple. Next call will be back to Apple tech support.

pugh-n wrote:

I spent a couple of hours on the phone with Apple and tried multiple attempts to resolve the issue then talked to AOL for over an hour and finally got a response from a specialist that the limitation is an internal agreement between AOL and Apple that the emails will be limited to 10,000.

So given this same 10k limit arises with completely-not-Apple configurations (see links, including Microsoft, Mozilla, and others), and given this 10k limit arises with old Apple configurations (old enough to be not getting patches for mail), Yahoo/AOL has quietly negotiated with multiple closed- and open-source mail client projects and with multiple vendors to all implement a 10k limit across multiple mail clients and across multiple versions… just for Yahoo/AOL?

I’m… skeptical.

By all appearances, Yahoo/AOL is either rolling out a 10k limit, or is rolling out a 10k bug.

Here’s Mozilla Thunderbird mail client encountering the same limit:

… https://www.reddit.com/r/Thunderbird/comments/v4ydu0/10000_email_limit_via_imap_in_yahoo_email/

Identical situation. All my emails are on the AOL server, but I can only see the 10,000 most recent ones in Mail. Very frustrating. I downloaded another email app (Mozilla Thunderbird) and all of the emails are visible. No issue there. So, this is definitely an Apple issue, NOT AOL.

The Mail app has no restrictions as far as I know (iCloud does and so do most ISP's who provide you with an email address); however, Mail stores the emails on your hard drive and if you are allowing your drive to get too full, that may have something to do with it. By the way, you need to maintain an absolute minimum of 15 - 20 GB of free space at all times in order for the OS to function properly. If you fill it up completely, it will simply stop functioning.

<<If Thunderbird, Spark, and Apple Mail clients are all now showing a 10,000 message limit, it’s the mail host setting the limit and not Apple and not the mail clients.>>

Unfortunately, it's not that simple or obvious. Because the limits don't appear in some other apps, nor on AOL's webmail, nor their app. And they are totally unaware of it, and not purposely imposing any limits. Further, the same behavior happens on many Yahoo accounts, and they too are unaware of it, and not doing anything to throttle it. Instead, it seems to be something about how the clients and the email services interact that appeared in recent times. Also, the various apps that have this issue have developed it at different times. Sometimes, it spontaneously corrects, briefly, then reappears. So it's not just a limit/restriction that has been placed on AOL email.