Reinstall XP, restore .pst, Outlook always redownloads all my mail help...

[Chris Milne]

What is the correct procedure for this. I use yahoo email. I prefer
to use outlook at home, so i have pop access. It can not download
from yahoo email folders, and the folder structure is not the same in
yahoo and outlook (would be awfully tedious).

Anyway...when i need to reinstall XP or move to Vista or whatever...if
i export all my outlook data to a .pst file, i then reinstall XP/
Outlook, restore my files...when i reconnect to Yahoo email it
redownloads ALL of my emails and now i have a ton of duplicates...is
there something i should be doing to stop this? Since ive moved a lot
of files in to folders in Outlook its hard to even find all the
duplicates.

I keep my emails left on yahoo in case i need to search for something
while away from home.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Anyway...when i need to reinstall XP or move to Vista or whatever...if
i export all my outlook data to a .pst file, i then reinstall XP/
Outlook, restore my files...when i reconnect to Yahoo email it
redownloads ALL of my emails and now i have a ton of duplicates...is
there something i should be doing to stop this? Since ive moved a lot
of files in to folders in Outlook its hard to even find all the
duplicates.

Since Outlook keept the informaiton about what it has downloaded in the mail
profile in the registry, creating a new mail profile will destroy that
information and Outlook will see everything in the Inbox on the server as
new. So, there are a couple of ways to address this. One is to move the
daya out of the Inbox on the server. Since Yahoo allows web access to
server folders, move the contents of the Inbox to a new folder. Outlook
won't see it because POP can't access folders. An added advantage to this
is that you'll have to do it only once for the existing messages.

Another way is to create a new PST (File>New>Outlook Data File), make it
your delivery location, allow Outlook to download all the messages again,
switch the delivery back to the original PST and close and delete the new
PST containing all the duplicates. You'll have to do this each time you
create a new mail profile, though, since the messages will still be in the
Inbox on the server.

 

[DL]

As posted daily exporting & importing is not the way to treat a pst file, it
loses various settings and can lose mail

With OL closed you copy the pst
With the pst located on the new PC, having not overwritten any existing pst.
Either use the mail icon in the control panel to reconnect it or use, within
OL, File>Open>Data File