Outlook 2007 has removed all my mail from my internet mailbox!!!!

[Ron_Luning]

I just set up Outlook 2007 with my wife's email account from sbcglobal.net.
Her account was linked with a Yahoo email account as well. I believe Outlook
is using Pop and SMTP for receiving/sending (whatever those are). The problem
is that Outlook populated its inbox with all the mail that was in the Yahoo
inbox, and now the Yahoo inbox is completely empty. There was no warning that
it was going to do this when we did the setup. My wife uses her email account
at various locations, and not just on the computer we set up Outlook on.

Is there any way to have Outlook send the emails back to the Yahoo/SBC
server so that they are back on the internet?

Frankly, I think that Outlook should provide a serious warning when setting
it up that this will happen. I'm extremely dissatisfied with Microsoft so far.

 

[DL]

Its nothing specifically to do with outlook, or MS
This is the default behaviour for any email application.
If you want to keep your web mail you would need to set up the outlook
account to leave a copy on the server.
As it is the only method to repopulate your web server would be to send the
mail back.

 

[VanguardLH]

in

I just set up Outlook 2007 with my wife's email account from sbcglobal.net.
Her account was linked with a Yahoo email account as well. I believe Outlook
is using Pop and SMTP for receiving/sending (whatever those are). The problem
is that Outlook populated its inbox with all the mail that was in the Yahoo
inbox, and now the Yahoo inbox is completely empty. There was no warning that
it was going to do this when we did the setup. My wife uses her email account
at various locations, and not just on the computer we set up Outlook on.

Is there any way to have Outlook send the emails back to the Yahoo/SBC
server so that they are back on the internet?

Frankly, I think that Outlook should provide a serious warning when setting
it up that this will happen. I'm extremely dissatisfied with Microsoft so far.

That is how POP (post office protocol) works. The default behavior is
to send a RETR (retrieve) command to yank a copy of each new e-mail from
your mailbox up on the mail host to keep a local copy of it and then
follow with a DELE (delete) command to delete the copy up in the
mailbox. That's is standard behavior for POP e-mail clients, not just
Outlook. If you want to leave the e-mails up in your mailbox, you will
have to enable the option to "leave messages on server" which eliminates
the DELE command getting sent.

POP has no concept of folders. It only understands the concept of a
single mailbox. That means the "Inbox" up on the mail host (as you see
it when using the webmail interface to your account) is the mailbox from
which the POP e-mail client will retrieve e-mails. Other folders that
you have created or are included in your webmail account will not be
seen by a POP e-mail client. That means if your wife's e-mail
completely disappeared from the webmail account that she was sloppily
leaving all her e-mails in her Inbox. Since the Inbox is probably the
busiest "folder", it is unwise to leave all old messages polluting that
single folder. Instead she should have been organizing her e-mails into
other folders if she wanted to keep them around. Also, placing them in
folders other than the "Inbox" means that the POP e-mail client can't
get at them.

If you want your local e-mail client to see all the folders on the mail
host for your e-mail account, you will need to get an IMAP interface to
your account. You will have to check if your e-mail provider includes
IMAP support. Then all the folders up on the webmail account will be
seen locally in Outlook when it syncs to your acccount. Otherwise, with
POP, all the e-mail client gets is what is in the Inbox folder.

Outlook nor any other e-mail client that supports POP, IMAP, HTTP, SMTP,
or Exchange accounts is going to alert you to how those e-mail protocols
function. The problem was not the e-mail client. The problem is you
lack of understanding the e-mail protocol. Read the following if you
want to find out how the non-Microsoft e-mail protocols work:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_office_protocol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imap
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smtp