Merge multiple inboxes?

[Dave Claxon]

I have Outlook 2007 on Vista Business, and recently connected it to an
Exchange 2003 Server. But rather than dropping Exchange mail into my
existing Inbox it created another inbox. (Actually a second everything,
Inbox, Outbox, Sent Items, etc. A mailbox for Exchange and a personal folder
for old e-mail.) Is there a way to merge the two sets of folders? Exchange
Pop3 connector is collecting mail from the old accounts, so all new mail is
coming into the exchange mailbox. Is it safe to just copy everything from
the old inbox to the new, then delete the old one?

Thanks,
Dave

 

[Duncan McC]

I have Outlook 2007 on Vista Business, and recently connected it to an
Exchange 2003 Server. But rather than dropping Exchange mail into my
existing Inbox it created another inbox. (Actually a second everything,
Inbox, Outbox, Sent Items, etc. A mailbox for Exchange and a personal folder
for old e-mail.) Is there a way to merge the two sets of folders? Exchange
Pop3 connector is collecting mail from the old accounts, so all new mail is
coming into the exchange mailbox. Is it safe to just copy everything from
the old inbox to the new, then delete the old one?

Yep, sure is. Use the Outlook "tree" and drag n' drop all your PST
stuff into your Exchange folders as you desire.

Then you can drop your PST off.

If you want no PST's at all, just check that you are not autoarchiving
(Tools, OPtions, Other (tab), Autoarchive (button).

 

[Dave Claxon]

Thanks, Duncan. That was what I suspected, but I didn't want to try it until
I cot confirmation from someone who knows better than I. I don't think I'm
autoarchiving, but when I connected it to Exchange, it said it was running
in "cached mode," which I understand to mean it's keeping a local pst in
addition to the mailbox on the server, for use when disconnected. And it
also seems like a reasonably good backup. I'm just not sure yet if that
means it's keeping 2 PSTs, or one big one with two sets of folders.

Dave

 

[Duncan McC]

Yes, cached mode's a good thing. Yes, it does keep a local "pst" file
on your workstation, it's called an OST file though (not PST) - ('O' for
offline, presumably . And it makes Outlook work much faster. It
also enables you to do stuff, if you ever loose connectivity to the
server (temporarily) say, as your 'stuff' is still available to view and
work with.

Once you've drag n' dropped your PST based data to Exchange, you can
drop the PST file (don't forget tasks, contacts etc) - and anyway,
there'll be nothing in it after that, right?

The problem with auto-archiving, is that your (auto-archived) Exchange
data will end up back in an auto-archive PST file. I doubt it's what
you want. (Group Policy can be applied from SBS Server to stop everyone
from setting auto-archive in Outlook.)