Outlook currently checks for new emails with intervals of 30 minutes which doesn’t really work for me.

Outlook Sync Frequency

Outlook will sync with the Exchange server once per minute. You can change is the time interval that Outlook automatically checks or sends email Microsoft Outlook always automatically schedules a send/receive every 30 minutes. Quick video on how to change your email check frequency in Outlook 2016 so that you can make it check for emails more often than the default of 30 minutes be.

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.

Outlook Sync Frequency Range

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…

Change Outlook Sync Frequency

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

Outlook sync frequency distribution

Outlook Email Sync Frequency

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.

Outlook Sync Frequency Calculator

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.

Outlook App Sync Frequency Iphone


By default Outlook checks for new messages every 30 minutes.
Separate send/receive intervals can be set for online and offline mode.