Outlook IMAP issues

[danno]

I'm using Outlook 2010 on Win7 and I've recently converted from a POP3 email account to an IMAP account and I'm experiencing a number of issues and I don't know how to solve, although I've noted some workarounds. From what I've been able to research, it appears Outlook 2010 support of IMAP is either limited or IMAP itself doesn't support many of the Outlook functions. For example:

• Find Related Messages. That option is greyed out when I'm in the IMAP folder tree. Is there a workaround or solution?
  
• Unable to delete IMAP folders (a godaddy.com email acct): Godaddy support claims that there’s nothing on their end that’s preventing deletion, but yet I’m able to delete a folder in my gmail acct in Outlook (gmail doesn’t actually create folders, they add a ‘label’ to a message which makes it behave as if it was put in a folder). The workaround isn’t too bad – move the folder into a non-IMAP mailbox (your default Outlook mailbox), then delete it.
  
• Slowness in Outlook opening IMAP messages: When I open a message I haven't viewed before, I often see a brief popup window ‘downloading’, a delay of a few seconds (especially if the message contains an attachment), then the message displays in the preview pane. This is happening despite the Outlook (default) setting which causes all IMAP folders in the account’s mailbox to download the complete message when receiving message, but it still seems to wait until the message is read to download. Why is Outlook not 'pre-downloading' the entire message as per the settings?
  

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Find related: Should work if you have outlook downloading full messages.

I'll have to check on the godaddy problem - it should work, but godaddy may be doing goofy stuff with the accounts.

Is the full message downloaded or is it getting downloaded content, like pictures? Try turning off the download content in File, options, trust center, automatic download. Set it so nothing downloads and see if this problem goes away.

 

[danno]

I believe I'm downloading full messages. Attached is a screen shot showing the Send/Receive settings (they're the default setting when the IMAP acct is created and the same for both IMAP accounts).

I only have the 1 IMAP account (other than the gmail acct), so I have no way of knowing if another IMAP server (other than gmail, which handles things differently as I had mentioned originally) other than godaddy.com would handle things differently.

That appears to be the default settings (the checkbox for "Don't download pictures" and all the sub-choices are checked), since I've never looked at this setting before. The slowness was most noticeable with emails with large attachments (>1mb in size), not pictures.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

I just checked with a godaddy imap account in Outlook 2010 - find related it disabled. Sorry about that. Strike that - if you open a message, find related works. Another one of Outlook's stupid imap behavior.

I have several imap accounts and for the most part, they all work mostly the same. Gmail is a bit weird with the folders, but overall they are mostly the same.

Large attachments can take a few seconds to render. The settings are correct to download everything.

 

[danno]

Thanks for the info (and workaround) related to Find Related on IMAP folders.

I figured as such on deleting folders. The workaround will have to suffice.

Strange that it would be 're-downloading' IMAP message that had already been downloaded. When an large IMAP account is duplicated on a 2nd machine, that's where the slowness is really noticeable. Even though a local PST 'cache' is created for that IMAP account and messages are allegedly downloaded (and the settings correct), that appears to be a lie or else it wouldn't be trying to download again.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Are you copying the imap pst between computers? Each account needs to keep its own set of folders - you can't share imap folders between accounts.

 

[danno]

No. I know that IMAP PST files cannot be 'reused' or copied. They are generated at the time the account is created and are automatically deleted when the account is removed from Outlook.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Most people know it, but I had to ask, just to be sure. The one time I wouldn't ask, it would be the person who didn't know.

 

[brrrknee]

I believe I'm downloading full messages.

I'm having a frustratingly similar problem, where I have "download full message and attachments" but emails with attachments arrive and as above, do not complete the download until I open the email. This interferes with an automation where the rule "sees" an emailItem with attachments, but when the handling VBA opens the item, the attachments.count is 0. It will at times update to the count of actual attachments after a brief delay (via Timer/DoEvents, and not really brief as I've opened it up to 180s!), but more often not at all. Until I open the email. then I have to rerun the rule on messages in the InBox, manually. a real pain.

What underlying actions are really happening, and are there Registry settings that we can set to REALLY, REALLY DOWNLOAD the message and attachments immediately? If the event is fired that an email has been received, enough to see that it contains an attachment, at that point I would want such an attachment available. Thus I'd rather only see the event (newMail or more likely newMailEx) after it had fully downloaded. that way people other than MS would be able to make this more usable.

Thanks for any ideas.

 

[Diane Poremsky]

I'm not aware of registry settings that will affect it, just the ones set when you choose the download everything. I'll see what I can find out about why the behavior is not correct.