Hey everyone! I'm looking for help pulling accurate unread email counts for about 500 users in a Microsoft 365 tenant that's running a hybrid Exchange setup. I've hit a wall because my attempts at using PowerShell haven't yielded consistent results. The item counts come through just fine, but whenever I try to get the UnreadItemCount, it just returns blank or null, which is frustrating. For instance, I used this command:
Get-MailboxFolderStatistics emails@|
Where-Object {$_.FolderType -eq "Inbox"} |
Select FolderPath,UnreadItemCount
This gives me the folder path and item count, but the UnreadItemCount is always empty across different users. It seems like this might be a limitation of how Exchange Online presents unread data, particularly in hybrid environments.
Before I dive deeper into building a solution using Graph API, I wanted to see if anyone has figured out:
* A PowerShell method that reliably returns unread counts
* A Graph API workflow or script that works well for many users
* A third-party tool that can handle this without risking throttling limits
* Or any other reliable workaround that doesn't involve manually checking each mailbox.
I'd really appreciate any insights or experiences you can share. Thanks!
3 Answers
I feel for you! This kind of pressure is more about management trying to control their team rather than addressing workload issues. It’s definitely better handled at the management level, especially if someone is drowning in emails.
I get why you might need to do this, likely due to some management requests. But honestly, it feels like this should be a management issue instead of a tech problem. If someone's not managing their emails well, that's on their manager to handle, not on IT to create a report for it.
I'm not sure why you’d want to track unread emails. Seems a bit intrusive, doesn’t it? I mean, what’s next, calling people out for not checking their messages regularly? I keep some emails unread on purpose, either as a reminder to come back to them later or simply because I’m not ready to deal with them yet. Plus, Outlook has features that let you keep things unread until you decide you're ready to tackle them, which is super handy!
Yeah, it feels kind of weird to monitor that. Everyone has their own way of handling emails!
Totally agree. It's usually a sign of poor management if you have to track individual unread emails!