Syncing email

[bri]

Is there a preferred way of maintaining multiple email accounts across two computers? I've been using Outlook Express for hotmail and a couple POP emails, and would like to maintain the same mailboxes on a second computer. Thought about using Thunderbird on a U3 memory stick but that would be a pain to plug in every time.

[bri]

anything?

[snessiram]

I don't know what the possibilities are with hotmail and your other accounts, but I'm using IMAP (instead of POP) to have a synchronized version of my mails in mail.app, outlook express and gmail and it works very well.

[jdhurst]

Outlook Express files are .dbx or some such in an Indenties folder deep inside Your Documents folder. There are posts here with pointers to them, or you can look for Identities folders and you should find them. Then you can copy them over to the other computer.

It has been years since I have used Outlook Express, but I used to do something like that. Sorry I cannot be more specific, but memory fades over the years. ... JDH

[K0LO]

Your Hotmail account will not be a problem on multiple PCs with Outlook Express because the folders are stored on the Hotmail servers, so the view will be the same from any PC.

For POP accounts on two PCs you can get a kludgy workaround by going to Tools > Accounts > and then choosing "Properties" for your POP account. On the Advanced tab, select "Leave a copy of messages on server" and also "Remove from server after x days", where x is a convenient length of time like 5 days, for example.

This will allow you to see the same Inbox view on the two PCs and won't clog your email provider's server by making sure that the messages are removed periodically. But you will have to manually keep track of the other folders by periodically copying them from one PC to another, so this is a kludge. Better to see if you can use IMAP with your current email account.

[bri]

Oh I didn't know gmail did IMAP, thought it was just POP. I'll check it out. Does IMAP preserve folders?

Syncing .dbx files is a possibility, but think would run into issues when Outlook Express is open on both computers and it tries to sync active files.

Different issue: I currently use POP and do 'leave a copy of messages on server' so that I can also see it old email using web access. I use the 'remove from server when deleted from Deleted Items' but it doesn't seem to work. Any ideas on that?

[Dale H. Cook]

Syncing .dbx files is a possibility, but think would run into issues when Outlook Express is open on both computers and it tries to sync active files.

Every synchronization program that I've used has had issues with files that are open on both computers. You would need to shut down Outlook on both machines before synchronization. Also bear in mind that you will be able to run Outlook (or any synchronized program) on only one machine at a time, and will have to synchronize again before switching machines.

If you have to have a single email account running under Outlook on two machines at the same time, synchronization won't work - use IMAP.