Outlook email not updating automatically
Check Your Internet Connection
Make sure the internet is working and the mailbox server is online and available. To verify, you can log in to your webmail account using a web browser. If you can log in successfully and access all mail items, send/receive emails, etc., the issue could be with your Outlook client, profile, or data file (.ost).
Outlook prompts users when it fails to connect to the mailbox server and asks for the new password if changed. Sometimes, it may not prompt. Thus, you can check your email credentials and account settings manually to ensure Outlook establishes a connection with the mailbox server and synchronizes mail items to/from the server.
In Outlook, navigate to File > Account Settings > Account Settings and select your email account.
Click Change > More Settings.
Verify and update the email credentials and check the email account settings are correct.
Toggle Cached Exchange Mode
You can toggle the Cached Exchange Mode to try to fix the Outlook not updating emails automatically issue. The steps are as follows:
In Outlook, go to File > Account Settings > Account Settings.
Under the Email section, click on your email account and then click Change.
Under the Offline Settings, disable the Use Cached Exchange Mode option.
Restart Outlook for the changes to take effect.
Enable Send Immediately Option
Send immediately when connected is an advanced option that forces Outlook to update emails as soon as it connects to the mailbox server. To enable this option, follow these steps:
In Outlook, click File > Options > Advanced.
Under Send and Receive, click Send immediately when connected
Click OK and restart Outlook.
Setup a New Outlook Profile
You can create a new Outlook profile, which may fix the problem
Close Outlook and open the Control Panel.
Search and click on the Mail > Show Profile
Click Add and type the new profile name. Click OK.
Add your email account by entering the email credentials. Continue the setup wizard to configure your email under this new Outlook profile.
Once set up, Outlook will start the synchronization process and update all mail folders and items automatically.
After the synchronization, make sure all the mail folders are updated.
Note: If you find some mail items missing, move them to your new profile from the old one. Once all emails are moved, you may remove the old profile, which will also remove the OST file associated with that profile.
When the Outlook data file (OST) file is large or oversized, it may become inconsistent and lead to Outlook synchronization issues leading to outdated emails and mailbox items, delays in sending or receiving emails, slow search results, etc.
Open Outlook and right-click on your email in the left pane.
Choose Open File Location. This will open the OST file location.
Once located, close the Outlook client and copy the OST file to another drive or folder location.
After copying, delete the default Outlook OST file and start Outlook.
Outlook will check for the OST file. Since you have deleted it, Outlook will create a new OST file and synchronize all mail items and emails from the mailbox server to this local OST file. This may take a while to complete depending on your mailbox size.
After the synchronization is complete, check your mail folders and items.
Note: if there is missing mail items, you can use the backup (copied) OST file and convert it into Outlook importable PST format using an OST to PST converter software.