laredotornado said:
I'm trying to help my Dad get his SBCGlobal Yahoo mail archived in
Outlook before they shut down his account. We were able to get the
normal SBCGlobal inbox into Outlook but it appears the various folders
he created (and the emails within them) are not appearing in Outlook.
What is the proper way to import those?
Let me know what other details I can provide. I think he is running
Outlook 2003.
POP only recognizes a mailbox. When using the webmail interface to your
account, that mailbox is what is shown as the Inbox. The other
server-side folders are not in the mailbox that POP can see. There are
no folder selection or navigation commands in POP.
If you want to synchronize to the other server-side defined folders then
you need to use IMAP to access your account. It will sync to the other
folders besides just the Inbox folder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_office_protocol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imap
For now, have dad move all items in the Inbox folder to another holding
folder (i.e., clear it out by moving out any items currently within it).
Create a new folder similarly named to the server-side folder that dad
created using the webmail interface to his account. Using the webmail
client, move all items from that server-side folder into the server-side
Inbox folder. Have the e-mail client poll his account. After
retrieving all items from the Inbox folder using POP, move the items out
of the Inbox folder in his e-mail client into the similarly named local
folder that he created. Repeat this process for each server-side folder
to get them into a similarly named local folder in his e-mail client.
Then move the holding folders items back into the Inbox folder of his
e-mail client (and delete the holding folder).
As an example and assuming a server-side folder setup of:
- Inbox
- SpecialFolder1
- SpecialFolder2
Have him do the following:
- In the e-mail client:
o Create an Inbox -> Hold folder (a Hold subfolder under the Inbox
folder).
o Move all Inbox items into the Hold folder.
- Using the webmail client:
o Delete all items left in the Inbox folder.
o Copy all items in Special1 to the Inbox folder.
- In the e-mail client:
o Create an Inbox -> Special1 subfolder.
o Poll the e-mail account. All items in the Inbox folder are
retrieved.
o Move all items from the Inbox to Special1 subfolder.
- Using the webmail client:
o Delete all items left in the Inbox folder.
o Copy all items in Special2 to the Inbox folder.
- In the e-mail client:
o Create an Inbox -> Special2 subfolder.
o Poll the e-mail account. All items in the Inbox folder are
retrieved.
o Move all items from the Inbox to Special2 subfolder.
- After items in all server-side folders have been retrieved, in the
e-mail client:
o Move all items in the Hold to Inbox folder.
o Delete the temporary Hold subfolder.
Notice where I say "move" versus "copy". In the e-mail client, you move
the newly retrieved items out of the Inbox folder (to make room for the
next repeat in the procedure without mixing e-mails from different
server-side folders). You copy when using the webmail client to leave
the original items in their server-side folders just in case there is a
problem so you still have them to retry the procedure.
Because POP only accesses the Inbox as shown by the webmail client, that
is where you need to put e-mails that you want to transfer down to your
POP e-mail client.
I can foresee one problem with the above procedure: have the e-mails
moved into the server-side folders ever been in the server-side Inbox
folder and been retrieved by the local e-mail client? If so, the e-mail
client has recorded the UID (unique ID) for each of those e-mails and
won't download them again. But that also means that dad has previously
downloaded a copy of those e-mails (and decided at that time where to
put them in the local e-mail client).
Basically with POP, you have one "Inbox" pipe through which you can
retrieve your e-mails so you connect that pipe to different server-side
folders (by moving items from them into the Inbox and do a retrieve).
