We've had a lot of people complaining that a range of old appointments are missing from the calendar. For example, in November they notice appointments from July and earlier are still in the calendar but appointments in August and September are missing.
When all old appointments go missing AutoArchive is the most likely culprit, but AutoArchive doesn't delete recent appointments and leave much older appointments in your calendar, so we know that it’s not an archive problem.
Looking in my crystal ball, I see the a new handheld device was put into service right about the time of the first missing appointments and its being synchronized it with Outlook.
Because the appointments were deleted by the device and synced to Outlook they may not be placed in the Deleted items folder. If they are not in the Deleted items folder you won't be able to recover the items - you'll need to restore them from a backup file.
The Cause
Typically, sync software defaults to syncing current appointments and deletes appointments older than a few weeks to conserve space, with a default setting of 60 days (8 weeks) or similar. When appointments are deleted from the handheld, the sync process deletes them from Outlook too. So after a few weeks of use, appointments are deleted from the handheld to free up space and then from Outlook on the next sync. The calendar will have appointments for dates before the first sync and very recent dates but the period between the first sync and a few weeks ago are missing.
The Solution
Set the handheld to keep appointments forever. If you need to free up space on the device, use AutoArchiving in Outlook to remove appointments from Outlook. When you archive them, the next sync will remove them from your handheld.
On a Blackberry, open the Calendar, press the Blackberry button to expand the menu and choose Options. The setting that controls how long items are kept is near the bottom of the General Options page.
Items deleted in the sync process are usually not recoverable. If you don't have a backup they are gone forever.
Syncing Tips
Always, always back up your contacts and calendar when you get a new handheld and start syncing with Outlook. We see too many reports of disappearing appointments and contacts when users start syncing with a new device, even from people who are family with syncing. It's too easy to forget to change a setting and lose everything or end up with duplicates.
More Information
See Duplicate Remover Tools for Microsoft Outlook for additional options.
Does AutoArchive on clendar start the counting from the creation or from the start/end date?
thank you very much!
The default for AutoArchive is to use either the start date or the modified date, whichever is later. You can set a registry key to only use the start date and ignore the modified date.
https://www.slipstick.com/outlook/archive-outlook/autoarchiving-received-date-outlook/
I Have a aspire one 725 notebook. my calendar from jan 14 - Jun 14.. everything is missing. how can I re install whats gone ??
What type of email account? Are you using AutoArchive? Syncing with a smart phone?
Just some are missing. No common factors that I can determine
I'm out of ideas. Sorry.
"Handheld Device" ? Is this deliberately done, or someone with a tablet came too close to my computer ?
My problem is, Calendar and Address Book disappeared....in Office 2010
Any suggestions ?
Thanks,
Ron
Handheld device covers everything from the older PDAs to smartphones and the various tablets.
What type of email account do you use? Did the folders disappear or just the contents of the folders? Do you sync with a smartphone or tablet?
I don't use any other devices so it's not a syncing problem. Any other suggestions?
Off hand, no, i can't think of anything that would remove them - just archiving and syncing.
When I opened my calendar this morning, my events/appointments were there. When I looked at it a few minutes later they are all gone. Auto Archive is off. All of the events/appointments appear in the "mail" view but not in the "calendar" view. How can I fix this?
Mail view as in mail folder or in the to-do list / To-Do Bar? Switch to the folder list (Ctrl+6 will get you there) - how many calendar folders do you see? Do any of them contain the missing appointments?
If not, what type of email account do you use and which version of Outlook?
Thanks, but it was already set on Do Not Archive.
So archive is off and you don't sync with devices... that eliminates all the causes - something is clearly removing them and it's not your finger on the Del button. If you are using Exchange server, the Exchange admin can use Mailbox Manager to clear out old stuff. Like Archiving, it skips recurring events until the last occurrence ages.
Only some events drop, most of the recurring (monthly meetings, etc.) are still there.
That sounds like autoarchive - recurring events stick around until the last event in the series. Is AutoArchive enabled? You can set the calendar to never archive, that way it won't be touched if archive is turned on. Right click on the folder and choose Properties then AutoArchive tab.