Outlook 2003 not responding when "synchronizing folders"

[Rolf Barbakken]

Today Outlook 2003 started synchronizing folders. Never done it before. And
it hangs while doing it. I can kill the process, but when Outlook starts
again it continues to synchronize and I can't get to my email, contacts,
anything.

What is it synchronizing? Why? With what? How can I stop it?

Outlook 2003 is only used for internet mail.

 

[Rolf Barbakken]

Hi Rolf,

By default, Outlook 2003 caches all mail and folders to
your hard drive. This allows you to work even if you are
offline. It takes a while to cache everything the first
time but speeds up after that. To disable this
functionality:

1. On the Tools menu, click E-Mail Accounts, click View
or change existing e-mail accounts, and then click Next.
2. In the Outlook processes e-mail for these accounts in
the following order list, click the Exchange Server e-
mail account, and then click Change.
3. Under Microsoft Exchange Server, clear the Use Cached
Exchange Mode check box.
4. Exit and restart Outlook.

Does that make sense?

It could've made sense if I had been using Exchange, but I'm in
internet-only mode, as I said.

Turned out to be problems with one or two emails that never got downloaded
for some reason. I used the webmail client to delete all the email I would
delete anyway and the problem cleared up. After this I got three copies of
every email that were to be downloaded in the hanging session, but that no
big problem.

Thanks.