Not able to search outlook email by SearchTerm - email

Question

I have written a sample code that bring email of one folder of Outlook email account between given date range. I am using Java Mail API 1.5 and Java 7.
For getting messages, I have written below code that search emails since 1-Jan-1970 to before 30-Oct-2013 -
Date FutureDate = new Date(2013 - 1900, 9, 30, 00, 00, 00);
Date PastDate = new Date(1970 - 1900, 0, 1);
SearchTerm newerThen = new ReceivedDateTerm(ComparisonTerm.LE, FutureDate);
SearchTerm olderThen = new ReceivedDateTerm(ComparisonTerm.GE, PastDate);
SearchTerm andTerm = new AndTerm(olderThen, newerThen);
Message[] msg = folder.search(andTerm);
This code is returning zero length msg i.e. no message is found since 1-Jan-1970 to before 30-Oct-2013, though my folder contains 204 emails between this range.
Surprisingly, the same code working fine to search email of folders of Gmail as well as of Yahoo IMAP account.
Following is the protocol trace for Outlook "Inbox" folder that contain 204 emails but not searching emails via date range search term -
DEBUG: setDebug: JavaMail version ${mail.version}
DEBUG: getProvider() returning javax.mail.Provider[STORE,imaps,com.sun.mail.imap.IMAPSSLStore,Sun Microsystems, Inc.,${mail.version}]
DEBUG IMAPS: mail.imap.fetchsize: 16384
DEBUG IMAPS: mail.imap.ignorebodystructuresize: false
DEBUG IMAPS: mail.imap.statuscachetimeout: 1000
DEBUG IMAPS: mail.imap.appendbuffersize: -1
DEBUG IMAPS: mail.imap.minidletime: 10
DEBUG IMAPS: trying to connect to host "imap-mail.outlook.com", port 993, isSSL true
* OK Outlook.com IMAP4rev1 server version 17.3.0.0 ready (BLU451-IMAP84)
A0 CAPABILITY
* CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 CHILDREN ID NAMESPACE AUTH=PLAIN AUTH=XOAUTH2 SASL-IR
A0 OK CAPABILITY completed
DEBUG IMAPS: AUTH: PLAIN
DEBUG IMAPS: AUTH: XOAUTH2
DEBUG IMAPS: protocolConnect login, host=imap-mail.outlook.com, user=mymail#outlook.com, password=<non-null>
DEBUG IMAPS: AUTHENTICATE PLAIN command trace suppressed
DEBUG IMAPS: AUTHENTICATE PLAIN command result: A1 OK mymail#outlook.com authenticated successfully
A2 CAPABILITY
* CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 CHILDREN ID NAMESPACE
A2 OK CAPABILITY completed
Store gmail:imaps://mymail%40outlook.com#imap-mail.outlook.com
DEBUG IMAPS: connection available -- size: 1
A3 SELECT Inbox
* FLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen \Draft)
* 204 EXISTS
* 0 RECENT
* OK [UNSEEN 101] Message 101 is first unseen
* OK [UIDVALIDITY 376204] UIDs valid
* OK [UIDNEXT 100235] Predicted next UID
* OK [PERMANENTFLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen \Draft)] Limited
A3 OK [READ-WRITE] SELECT completed.
TOTAL MAILS: 204
A4 SEARCH DELETED ALL
* SEARCH 1
A4 OK SEARCH Completed
FOLDER: Inbox
FUTURE DATE: Wed Oct 30 00:00:00 IST 2013
PAST DATE: Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 IST 1970
A5 SEARCH OR SINCE 1-Jan-1970 ON 1-Jan-1970 OR BEFORE 30-Oct-2013 ON 30-Oct-2013 ALL
* SEARCH
A5 OK SEARCH Completed
MESSAGE FOUND: 0
The protocol trace for Yahoo Inbox that contains only one email, and that searching emails with search term -
DEBUG: setDebug: JavaMail version ${mail.version}
DEBUG: getProvider() returning javax.mail.Provider[STORE,imaps,com.sun.mail.imap.IMAPSSLStore,Sun Microsystems, Inc.,${mail.version}]
DEBUG IMAPS: mail.imap.fetchsize: 16384
DEBUG IMAPS: mail.imap.ignorebodystructuresize: false
DEBUG IMAPS: mail.imap.statuscachetimeout: 1000
DEBUG IMAPS: mail.imap.appendbuffersize: -1
DEBUG IMAPS: mail.imap.minidletime: 10
DEBUG IMAPS: trying to connect to host "imap.mail.yahoo.com", port 993, isSSL true
* OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 ID NAMESPACE X-ID-ACLID UIDPLUS LITERAL+ CHILDREN XAPPLEPUSHSERVICE XYMHIGHESTMODSEQ AUTH=PLAIN AUTH=LOGIN AUTH=XYMCOOKIE AUTH=XYMECOOKIE AUTH=XYMCOOKIEB64 AUTH=XYMPKI] IMAP4rev1 imapgate-0.7.68_14.446672 imap411.mail.bf1.yahoo.com
DEBUG IMAPS: AUTH: PLAIN
DEBUG IMAPS: AUTH: LOGIN
DEBUG IMAPS: AUTH: XYMCOOKIE
DEBUG IMAPS: AUTH: XYMECOOKIE
DEBUG IMAPS: AUTH: XYMCOOKIEB64
DEBUG IMAPS: AUTH: XYMPKI
DEBUG IMAPS: protocolConnect login, host=imap.mail.yahoo.com, user=mymail#yahoo.com, password=<non-null>
DEBUG IMAPS: AUTHENTICATE PLAIN command trace suppressed
DEBUG IMAPS: AUTHENTICATE PLAIN command result: A0 OK AUTHENTICATE completed - Mailbox size in bytes is 33054009
A1 CAPABILITY
* CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 ID NAMESPACE X-ID-ACLID UIDPLUS LITERAL+ XAPPLEPUSHSERVICE XYMHIGHESTMODSEQ
A1 OK CAPABILITY completed
Store gmail:imaps://mymail%40yahoo.com#imap.mail.yahoo.com
DEBUG IMAPS: connection available -- size: 1
A2 SELECT Inbox
* 1 EXISTS
* 0 RECENT
* OK [UIDVALIDITY 1379569582] UIDs valid
* OK [UIDNEXT 7322] Predicted next UID
* FLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen \Draft)
* OK [PERMANENTFLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen \Draft)] Permanent flags
* OK [HIGHESTMODSEQ 5940064101685223608]
A2 OK [READ-WRITE] SELECT completed; now in selected state
TOTAL MAILS: 1
A3 SEARCH DELETED ALL
* SEARCH
A3 OK SEARCH completed
FOLDER: Inbox
FUTURE DATE: Wed Oct 30 00:00:00 IST 2013
PAST DATE: Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 IST 1970
A4 SEARCH OR SINCE 1-Jan-1970 ON 1-Jan-1970 OR BEFORE 30-Oct-2013 ON 30-Oct-2013 ALL
* SEARCH 1
A4 OK SEARCH completed
MESSAGE FOUND: 1
Please guide me where to made changes to get email via search term created with date range?
Is outlook do not support to search with SearchTerm of dates?
Thanks
Neelam Sharma

Answer 1

Looks like the outlook.com server is broken; please report the problem to Microsoft.

Answer 2

I stumbled upon a comparable problem while migrating mails with imapsync which also uses IMAP SEARCH to implement message filtering.
Searching outlook.com via IMAP SEARCH (see RFC 3501, section 6.4.4) works in general. But in my experience specifically searching for mails before a certain date does not seem to work in some folders. E.g. filtering by SENTBEFORE on the Sent folder is broken in outlook.com. I found your question while searching for solutions.
A workaround seems to be using the BEFORE IMAP search key which does not use the Date: header of messages but the internal IMAP server date. (Though I don't know how and if this translates to the JavaMail API.)
It seems that some things are (still) not implemented according to the spec by outlook.com.