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Problem synchronising IMAP folders with Outlook and Webmail

JohnMat
Dabbler
Posts: 15
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎14-03-2012

Problem synchronising IMAP folders with Outlook and Webmail

There appears to be a fundamental problem with email synchronising my IMAP account with Outlook.  It does not always work

First I got messages saying I am over the 1GB limit; but when I folder count in Outlook it is about 0.6GB.

Second when I count the number message in my Outlook inbox, there are 66 items, whereas Webmail shows 101.   I may have deleted 5 or 10 today, but not 35.  Looking further I can see Webmail is showing unread items in folders where I know I have read or deleted everything.

Third, as part of housekeeping following the PlusNet message, I decide to split a vital folder which had about 700 items in it, into 6 sub-folders.  Normally, I can move emails between folders in Outlook without difficulty.  And it seemed to work OK.

EXCEPT that synchronization seemed to delete many of them - nearly giving me a heart attack.  However, fortunately they appear to be all there in Webmail - cancel the ambulance!

Ringing the helpline - "oh it will sort itself out" - except it hasn't hree days later.

So PlusNet, please convince me that your email software does work and get those emails on to my computer.

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Changed thread title to reflect issue.

2 REPLIES 2
Mav
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 22,371
Thanks: 4,725
Fixes: 514
Registered: ‎06-04-2007

Re: Problem synchronising IMAP folders with Outlook and Webmail

Moderator's note:

Split to its own thread and title changed for better visibility.

Forum Moderator and Customer
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear - Mark Twain
He who feared he would not succeed sat still

spraxyt
Resting Legend
Posts: 10,063
Thanks: 674
Fixes: 75
Registered: ‎06-04-2007

Re: Problem synchronising IMAP folders with Outlook and Webmail

  1. When Outlook is open, if you scroll down the accounts list on the left do any IMAP accounts appear there that you aren't expecting to have? When I had synchronisation problems I discovered 3 accounts still listed there which had out of date settings. The accounts did not appear in the File->Account Settings->Account Settings... Email tab list though the Data Files tab listed their data files. When I deleted the unwanted accounts (by right-clicking them and selecting delete) my synchronisation problems disappeared.
  2. Do you have emails going back more than three months in your inbox, but Outlook set to show only the last three month's worth? That could account for Outlook showing fewer messages than Webmail.
  3. When a warning is issued about mailboxes being oversize, splitting the content into smaller folders won't help - the limit is applied to the total content of all account folders. This includes items in  Trash/Deleted Items folders. In fact this is double counted because items moved to Deleted Items (or another folder) initially remain in place with a "deleted" flag set which makes them invisible in many email clients (pale grey in webmail).
  4. To recover the space it is necessary to empty Deleted Items folders and Compact Inboxes (or any other folder where files have been deleted).
David