You may run the Mailbox Cleanup tool in Outlook to clear old and unwanted emails in Outlook. But after the running the Mailbox clean up tool, you look at the size of the folders and are surprised to see the 3 or 4 folders still remaining. The names of the folders are Sync Issues, Sync Issues\Conflicts, and Sync Issues\Local Failures and Sync Issues\Server Failures.
By default, these folders are hidden and generally not visible in the Outlook navigation pane, but if you are using the Mailbox cleanup tool, you can view them in View Mailbox size option.
Let’s understand what these Sync Issues folders are for, what does it contain and should they be deleted?
How to view Sync folders in Outlook?
In order to view the Sync folders, you can change the settings to make them visible in the navigation pane.
- To do so, click on the 3 dots in the bottom of the main Outlook window
- Select the Folders option
Now, the navigation pane will have all the mail folders including Sync issues folder and its sub-folders.
What do the Sync folders contain?
Sync folders usually contain message logs about issues encountered when syncing emails in Outlook using the copy on the mail server. This usually happens when you are working offline for a while and Outlook hasn’t been able to connect to the server.
Each of the sub-folder in the Sync folder contains information about a specific problem.
Sync issues folder – Outlook periodically synchronizes information with the mail server. So, the sync folder contains message logs about this synchronization process. Because of this, any delay/issue in the sync will be recorded.
Sync issues\Conflicts – This folder contains multiple copies of emails. For example, if you use Outlook on your laptop as well as on your mobile, it may sync with the server several times and multiple copies may get stored.
Sync issues\Local failures – If Outlook has trouble sending email, a calendar change, notes or any new update to the server, it will be recorded in this folder. It does not mean Outlook has still not sent it to the server, it only means the number of times Outlook tried to is recorded in this folder.
Sync issues\Server Failures – This is the opposite of the Local Failures explained above. This folder records logs when Outlook had issues syncing from the server. This folder rarely has messages in it, hence it is not even visible under the Sync folder in some cases.
Should you keep the messages in the Sync folders or delete them?
Although messages in the Sync folders may not make sense to you, it may be helpful for the admins to troubleshoot issues with Exchange Server. Moreover, since these are text-only messages, they might not release a lot of space when deleted. So it is better to let these messages as they will be of no harm to you.
However, if in case you decide to delete the emails in the Sync folders, it would be in the same manner as deleting any other file.
Recover Outlook data
Due to various reasons, Outlook data or folders may get deleted. For instance, deleting stuff accidentally is one thing, but there are also others like PST file corruption. If you’re wondering, a PST file is a data file in Outlook that contains all its data on a local computer. If this file is corrupted, Outlook data may be harmed and Outlook may not function properly.
In such situations, Remo Repair can be used to repair Outlook and recover all its attributes. It can also be used to recover deleted Outlook folders.