How to Only Download New Email Messages from a POP account

[k-ster]

Does anyone know how to force Outlook to not download emails older than 10
days from a POP account? For some reason, Outlook has just started
downloading EVERY old message in my POP account (I don't delete them
because, well, disk space is basically free, and it is an easy way to
archive). I can't find a switch or setting to change that will stop this.

Thanks in Advance!

 

[Gordon]

Does anyone know how to force Outlook to not download emails older than 10
days from a POP account? For some reason, Outlook has just started
downloading EVERY old message in my POP account (I don't delete them
because, well, disk space is basically free, and it is an easy way to
archive).

That's all very well as long as you are using something like GMail with over
2GB of storage space - if you just have a "normal" pop account then you
will find that if you don't delete emails from the server then your mailbox
on the ISPs mail server will fill up and prevent you from receiving emails
at all.

So what's wrong with archiving locally? You can then make back-ups of your
archives. If your ISP mail server crashes, will they restore all your lost
emails? I don't think so!

 

[k-ster]

That's all very well as long as you are using something like GMail with over
2GB of storage space - if you just have a "normal" pop account then you
will find that if you don't delete emails from the server then your mailbox
on the ISPs mail server will fill up and prevent you from receiving emails
at all.

So what's wrong with archiving locally? You can then make back-ups of your
archives. If your ISP mail server crashes, will they restore all your lost
emails? I don't think so!

To respond to this entirely unhelpful response... disk space is essentially
free, and I want to be able to share the same email history across several
computers. On a different note, while Windows XP is dramatically more stable
than prior versions, it is still MUCH more likely that you'll lose data in a
local machine crash than in a mail server crash, since the likely hood of a
local crash/virus/theft is significant.

Of course, the real issue is being able to control the time span that mail
is downloaded over. I can set this in almost every other program I've used,
so it must be in Outlook somewhere, right?

 

[Gordon]

To respond to this entirely unhelpful response... disk space is
essentially free, and I want to be able to share the same email history
across several
computers. On a different note, while Windows XP is dramatically more
stable than prior versions, it is still MUCH more likely that you'll lose
data in a local machine crash than in a mail server crash, since the
likely hood of a local crash/virus/theft is significant.

Of course, the real issue is being able to control the time span that mail
is downloaded over. I can set this in almost every other program I've
used, so it must be in Outlook somewhere, right?

So to be even MORE unhelpful you are NOT storing your emails on your ISP's
server like you said you were in your original post. Please be ACCURATE in
what you post otherwise people WILL go to a wrong conclusion.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Does anyone know how to force Outlook to not download emails older
than 10 days from a POP account? For some reason, Outlook has just
started downloading EVERY old message in my POP account (I don't
delete them because, well, disk space is basically free, and it is an
easy way to archive). I can't find a switch or setting to change
that will stop this.

When a mail client like Outlook and a mail server holding a mailbox talk to
each other, the client asks the server how many messages are in the mailbox
and the server answers with the number. If that number isn't zero, the
client asks the server for the "UIDL" value of each message and compares it
with the list if UIDL values that it has from previous downloads. If any
UIDLs the server sends don't match the UIDLs the client remembers, then the
client assumes the messages are new and asks the server to send those
particular messages.

Sometimes, Outlook can lose track of its UIDL list and re-download messages
it has already seen. This can usually be fixed by creating a new mail
profile with Control Panel's Mail applet, since the UIDL list is kept in the
mail profile in the registry and not in a file, as some mail clients do.
Creating a new mail profile creates a new UIDL cache, which will result in
all messages being downloaded again one more time but after that, Outlook
should properly remember what it has downloaded and what it has not.

There are a few ways to deal with the extra download after creating the new
profile. One way is to create a new PST, switch the delivery location to
the new PST (which involves stopping and restarting Outlook), download once
(which will download everything on the server and populate the UIDL cache),
then swith the delivery location back to the original PST (involving
stopping and restarting Outlook again). Another way is to simply allow
Outlook to download everything again, making duplicates in your Inbox, then
eliminating those duplpicates with a thrid-party duplicate eliminator
application, some of which (including one free one) can be found at
http://www.slipstick.com/addins/mail_duplicates.asp