how to setup Outlook to NOT download old messages??

[Guest]

Hi There,

Need help with the following...

My Outlook data file is saved on my data drive, which is the D drive.
Because of something, I had to reformat my C drive. And after reinstalling
Windows, Office, etc. I went back to setup my Outlook to the data file on the
D drive. Naturally, all the old POP3 setup, folders, e-mail messages, and
even e-mail rules are imported.

BUT, when I clicked Send/Receive it redownloaded all the messages already in
the data file. How was that possible? Isn't Outlook supposed to read the
existing e-mail headers first and download only new e-mails? How do I
prevent Outlook from downloading old e-mails?

 

[Brian Tillman]

BUT, when I clicked Send/Receive it redownloaded all the messages
already in the data file. How was that possible? Isn't Outlook
supposed to read the existing e-mail headers first and download only
new e-mails?

That's not how POP clients work in determining what messages they're
downloaded and what they haven't. That information is kept in the mail
profile and because you reformatted, you had to create a new mail profile,
which reset everything.

How do I prevent Outlook from downloading old e-mails?

You have a couple of choices. First, you can create a new PST, make it your
delivery location, allow Outlook to download all your old mail, then switch
your delivery back to the current PST, dumping the new PST when you're done,
since it contains things you already have. Another approach would be to use
a web interface to connect to your mailbox on the ISP server, create another
folder there, and move all the messages from the server Inbox to the new
folder so that Outlook can't see it (POP doesn't support folders on the
server side). If it can't see it, it can't download it. You could also
just dump it from the server. Why keep a copy there if you never intend to
read it again?

 

[Tomar]

Hi, Are there any other ideas how to deal with this problem? The
suggestions mention above are not good in case when:
1. You have about 1.3 GB of messages
2. All messages are important - they are property of company I work -
so I can't delete them :-(

In my opinion there must be other solution how to solve this problem.
Does enybody knows it?

Thank you in advance
Tomek Konior

 

[Guest]

I think I get what you're saying about the mail profile. But I have similar
situation as Tomar's (see below), that one of my POP3 accounts is my office
mail, so I want to keep a copy of everything in the server.

Is there anything that can be done on the Outlook side?

Thank you.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Hi, Are there any other ideas how to deal with this problem? The
suggestions mention above are not good in case when:
1. You have about 1.3 GB of messages
2. All messages are important - they are property of company I work -
so I can't delete them :-(

In my opinion there must be other solution how to solve this problem.
Does enybody knows it?

At least one of the suggestions I made WILL work, WILL deal with as much
data as you like, WILL preserve the existing data, and will NOT require
downloading ANYTHING. Did you even read what I posted?

 

[Brian Tillman]

Is there anything that can be done on the Outlook side?

No. A new mail profile forces Outlook to download everything in the
server's inbox because, as far as Outlook is concerned, it's all new.

 

[Alan Smith]

I know this is an old post but being a user of 2007 I had to overcome this recently.

It can be done by copying your old profile to the new installation...

On the new PC/installation set up Outlook without an email account.

Close Outlook.

Replace the .pst it created with your .pst from the old machine.

On the old machine export the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook

On the new machine delete that key (and all subkeys)

Then merge the .reg file you exported into the registry of the new PC.

Start Outlook and your old account(s) will be created.

Outlook tracks the email it has downloaded against the account that downloaded it. If you created a new account that info would be lost. Doing this creates your old accounts exactly as they were on the old machine and Outlook then knows what emails it has already downloaded so only downloads new email.

I understand that the later versions of Outlook don't have this problem. This fix definitely works, even though all the answers I've seen on the 'net say it can't be done. It can.

Usual warnings about backing up registry first, I didn't bother though, do the steps above you'll be fine.