Outlook Trigger polling: messages arriving in same minute → only 1 processed

[joaof]

Using Microsoft Outlook Trigger with 1-minute polling (can’t set below 1 minute). If 3–4 emails arrive within the same minute, n8n only processes 1 and the rest don’t trigger. Expected: next poll should pick up all messages received since last poll. Is this a known limitation? Any workaround (fetch “many” since last watermark / delta query / pagination)?

[Anshul_Namdev]

Hi @joaof Welcome!
I personally never faced this issue with outlook, but i guess for solving this issue instead of using outlook trigger consider using a CRON and then fetch the mails. That way there will be no room left for errors.

[tamy.santos]

Hi @joaof, welcome to the n8n community
I use the trigger (or a Cron/Interval) only to wake the workflow, then I immediately call Outlook “Get Many” with a filter based on a stored watermark (the last receivedDateTime), split the results into single items, process them, and update the watermark for the next run; this follows n8n’s documented polling pattern and avoids missed bursts.
n8n-docs/docs/integrations/builtin/trigger-nodes/n8n-nodes-base.microsoftoutlooktrigger.md at main · n8n-io/n8n-docs · GitHub

[joaof]

Thanks for the warm welcome @Anshul_Namdev @tamy.santos i will check the cron solution and report back.

[achamm]

One thing worth knowing when you set this up is you can use $workflow.staticData to store your last processed timestamp between runs so you don’t need an external database or anything, just do something like $workflow.staticData.lastRun = new Date().toISOString() in a Code node at the end of your flow and then use that value in your “Get Many” filter on the next poll. The Microsoft Graph filter for receivedDateTime would look like receivedDateTime ge 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z where you swap in your stored timestamp.

[joaof]

Thank you for all the all the responses. I ended up cron the workflow and marking processed messages with a category using a outlook node at the end of processing. This way it will only pickup unprocessed messages and its easy to request reprocessing (just remove the category and it will be pickedup)