Check for new emails frequency setting in Outlook 2010, Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2016
Outlook currently checks for new emails with intervals of 30 minutes which doesn't really work for me.
I'd like to increase this frequency to every 5 minutes but I can't find out how to do it. I've check about everywhere in my Account Settings and went through many options as well.
Where can I set how often Outlook should look for new messages?
The option is still there but granted; You kinda need to know that it exists in order to find it since Outlook 2010.
There are 3 “easy” ways of accessing this option;
- Keyboard shortcut
CTRL+ALT+S (works for all Outlook versions) - Options menu
File-> Options-> section Advanced-> button Send/Receive… - Ribbon
tab Send/Receive-> button Send/Receive Groups-> Define Send/Receive Groups…
Note: An overview of the locations for the most common Outlook options across versions can be found in the guide; Where can I find…?
What to set the automatic send/receive frequency to
Don’t set the automatic send/receive interval too short or you could end up endlessly polling the mail server, Send/Receive errors and sometimes even duplicates.
If you only have 1 account, do not set it too check more often than once every 5 minutes. For 2 or 3 accounts, every 10 minutes would be recommended. From there, add 5 minutes for every 2-3 accounts that you add until you reach 30 minutes.
Note: This option does not affect Exchange accounts as Cached Exchange Mode uses a different send/receive mechanism which is near instant. However, the Offline send/receive interval does apply to Exchange accounts when you set Outlook to Work Offline.
By default Outlook checks for new messages every 30 minutes.
Separate send/receive intervals can be set for online and offline mode.
