Questions from a Newbie to Outlook 2007

D

Don

I moved to Outlook 2007 because I have far too many email accounts to
monitor... 12 IMAP accounts and 8 POP 3 accounts.

This means I have over 100 email folders. Is there a global setting to
configure a view that will apply to every folder? For example I want
certain columns in the message list for every single folder. It will be a
royal pain to have to do that one folder at a time. In Windows Explorer you
can apply a folder view set in one folder to every folder with the push of a
button. Can I do that in Outlook?

With this many accounts, I naturally want to keep them all collapsed unless
I have a new message to read. Unfortunately, the root of an IMAP account
does not turn bold and display the number of new messages in the subfolders
like is done in a POP folder with sub folders. Instead I have to expand
each root and then the sub folders with new messages are bold and have the
number of new messages displayed. Is there a configuration setting to
change this behaviour so I don't have to expand 12 accounts to see where I
have new messages?

I have set replies and forwards to prefix each line of the original message
with the "greater than" mark (>). But it doesn't happen. I chose the >
because not all messages I write are rtf or html and the vertical line would
not be good. Am I missing something?

I get lots of messages with attachments, typically jpg and other pictures.
In POP folders in Outlook Express these attachments can be viewed inline in
the preview pane. In Outlook 2007 they can't or I have not found the right
setting to change. Since these are actual attachments and not web beacons,
web bugs or links to external content the setting to not allow download of
such things should not impact this. Am I overlooking a setting somewhere?
(I assume in an IMAP account I have to actually download the message and
maybe even transfer it to a different folder before I can view the
attachment by any method at all)

I send mail to various maillists. In at least one of them, when my message
comes back to me it is copied to the junk mail folder and marked for
deletion in the inbox folder. I assume Outlook's junk mail filter thinks I
don't send mail to myself so when it sees that my account sent the message
in question it determines it is junk. To fix this I had to mark my
addresses as safe senders/recipients. That means when real junk mail with
my address spoofed as the sender arrives it will not be recognized as junk
mail. Is there a better work around for this?

In my previous email client I was able to specify a global inbox for my POP
and IMAP accounts. I am either missing something or the only way to do that
in Outlook is to set up a message rule or filter. Which is it?

Outlook can deal with IMAP, POP, SMTP, RSS, Exchange and more types of
accounts. So why do I have to use Windows Mail or Outlook Express to
subscribe to a newsgroup?

I chose to set up my accounts as IMAP where possible because I jump between
two desktops and a laptop with two of them dual booting (Yes, I have legal
licenses for all the Outlook installations). The POP accounts will
disappear when everyone gets used to the new accounts addresses. If
reverting to POP would fix some or all of these problems is there a simple
way to keep them all in sync across the three computers? Would there be
addins that will fix some or all of these problems?

Thanks for the help. This has been a far more frustrating experience than I
had anticipated.

Don
 
D

Diane Poremsky [MVP]

As an FYI - It's a lot easier to post each question (or two) in a separate
message - long posts are harder to read and respond to and may people skip
over the end.

I'm not sure why you thought Outlook would be easier to use to manage that
many accounts. It tends to be "less than fully satisfying" (quoting someone
who posted yesterday) when working with IMAP accounts.

to apply a view to all folders, see
http://www.outlook-tips.net/howto/grouping.htm. Note that views on IMAP
folders are harder to affect and they often revert this method may not work
on the IMAP accounts. Creating a custom view and selecting it when you view
the folder might work better.

No, you can't change how/when the folders expand. Folders usually do expand
when you get new messages in them so you may be able to set the folders to
update automatically to make them expand - but as I mentioned earlier, IMAP
in outlook sucks, so it may not work for IMAP accounts.

The vertical line in HTML is how html format prefixes. If you want > you
need to read all mail in plain text. If you hate the vertical line use the
reply option that doesn't prefix.

Outlook is not outlook express and has never displayed images inline (other
than embedded images in HTML). You need to select them to preview in Outlook
2007. See http://www.slipstick.com/mail1/inline.asp for more info. You
obviously need to download attachments in IMAP to be able to view them, but
they should be previewable in the IMAP folders, just as they would be in
other folders.

Rather than trusting mail from yourself, trust mail to and from the mailing
list - most lists are configured to have the list address as the to or from.

You can have all pop delivered to one inbox or set each to go to a different
folder but not IMAP. IMAP is a server account and you download copies of the
messages. Each account needs its own folder or all the mail will be uploaded
to one IMAP account. if you use rules to move IMAP mail to a different
mailbox they will be marked for deletion from the IMAP account.

Outlook is a mail client, not a newsreader. It's primarily an exchange
client and MAPI doesn't handle NNTP. Businesses don't usually want users to
access newsgroups - they'd rather have the effort put into making outlook a
great PIM. There are some NNTP addins you can use. See
http://outlook-tips.net/howto/news.htm - newshound is nice and supports
reading the TechNet and msdn forums.

There are sync tools you can use to share across multiple computers but IMAP
is probably better than any sync tool, unless you also need to share
calendar and contacts. Honestly, if there are clients that let you keep all
IMAP accounts in one inbox, you may be better using it than outlook. See
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/sync.asp and
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/share.asp for utilities and methods.



--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]



Outlook Tips by email:
mailto:[email protected]

EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
mailto:[email protected]

Let's Really Fix Outlook 2010
http://forums.slipstick.com/forumdisplay.php?f=34
 
D

Don

Some groups and maillists prefer related questions all be in one message
instead of several messages. I'll remember the etiquette here for future
messages. Thanks for the heads-up.

I've always thought of Outlook as a power user's email client and avoided
its complexity until I had too much email and thought it would be the proper
client to handle it all. Your insight may push me back to Thunderbird or
Windows Mail and Outlook Express. Unfortunately they also have shortcomings
I would rather avoid. Tough decision coming. One big plus for Thunderbird
is it is available as a portable application which makes it VERY easy to
move to the various computers I use.

Thanks for your terrific explanations and answers.

Hmmmmmm. I just noticed. Outlook marked the original text in this reply.
Maybe it will work in an HTML reply too. Maybe Outlook needed to exit and
restart for that change to take effect.

Don
 
D

Diane Poremsky [MVP]

Outlook is a power user's client, especially for those who need calendaring
and automation, and it works best with Exchange server accounts. It's
support for IMAP is getting better.... but its not as good as other clients.
(It was awful before.)

A lot of people say t-bird is a better for IMAP - what don't you like about
it?

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]



Outlook Tips by email:
mailto:[email protected]

EMO - a weekly newsletter about Outlook and Exchange:
mailto:[email protected]

Let's Really Fix Outlook 2010
http://forums.slipstick.com/forumdisplay.php?f=34
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top