Inbox Problems with IMAP in Outlook

  • Thread starter Thread starter William
  • Start date Start date
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William

I have a client who is switching over from AOL to a POP3 account. In
the interem, I set him up with Outlook, and an IMAP mailbox. I fear I
was a bit cocksure about the whole thing, and simply assumed Outlook
2000 would store a local copy of received messages.

Unfortunately, it appears that it doesn't, and his AOL account was set
to purge old emails after 14 days.

I have two questions for everyone:

1) Is it possible to retrieve old received messages from a cache
somewhere on the computer (he's running Windows 2000).

2) Is it possible to automate the local storage of IMAP messages in
Outlook 2000?

Thanks in Advance,

William
 
brit@camelopardalis NOSPAM dot org (William) wrote in message

Anyone have any suggestions at all? Please? Help?

Thanks,

Brit
 
From what I understand about IMAP, mail is always on the server. The
client just has a view of what's on the server. If the mail is gone
from the server, you can't usually get it back. I say usually, because
(1) you could ask the mail server's sysadmin to restore the email, and
(2) you might be on to something with the cache - if Outlook does in
fact keep a cache, and that cache has not been cleaned out or over
written, you may have something. Look in

....\Documents and settings\<user name>\Local Settings\Application
Data\Microsoft\Outlook\

and you may be able to find something. Good luck.

Possibly. You might try posting in an Outlook VBA newsgroup - either
m.p.o.program_vba or m.p.o.program_addins
 
IMAP is a local copy of the mailbox - if the message is deleted from the
server, it;s deleted from the local copy. If it moves to the deleted folder
you can recover.

Messages are not cached anywhere else on the computer, unless for some
reason a new pst was created and they are in the old one. It's rare but it
does happen... look for pst's at C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local
Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook.

Rules and such won't work on IMAP accounts unless the full message is
downloaded - you can drag the messages to a local pst and remove them from
the server or use rules programs like Exlife (www.ornic.com) and run them
offline to move messages every couple of days or write some VBA. See a list
of possible tools at http://www.slipstick.com/addins/auto.htm

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/
 
William said:
I have a client who is switching over from AOL to a POP3 account. In
the interem, I set him up with Outlook, and an IMAP mailbox. I fear I
was a bit cocksure about the whole thing, and simply assumed Outlook
2000 would store a local copy of received messages.
Click to expand...

In a way, it does. An IMAP account has an associated Personal Folders file
(PST), that is used an a local cache mirroring the contents of the IMAP
server folders. However, that cache contains messages only of you view
them. Otherwise they contain only the headers. Moreover, the cache folder
gets updated to match the server folder each time the folder is opened.
 
H Gohel said:
From what I understand about IMAP, mail is always on the server. The
client just has a view of what's on the server. If the mail is gone
from the server, you can't usually get it back.
Click to expand...

AOL expires old messages off of the IMAP server.

More information about AOL's IMAP servers can be found at:
http://members.aol.com/adamkb/aol/mailfaq/imap/

Spread the word...a lot of people are running into this problem. Which
is unfortunate, since it's just working the same way AOL has always
worked. AOL members just aren't used to dealing with another program.
Possibly. You might try posting in an Outlook VBA newsgroup - either
m.p.o.program_vba or m.p.o.program_addins
Click to expand...

Would be easier to just use a rule to copy all messages into local
folders. Essentially turn an IMAP account into a POP3 account.
 
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