IMAP Deleted and Sent items - some answers
decomplexity
After feedback about my recent (9/27/2009) post, I have experimented at some
length with a trial system to see what really goes on. What follows may be of
use to those like me who kept tripping up on WLM quirks. I apologize to IMAP
experts for tedious detail, but – reading others’ posts – the distinctions
between e.g. IMAP Sent items and Storage Folder Sent items and in particular
the introduction of the ability to store deleted items in an IMAP folder
rather than remaining in (e.g.) an Inbox (with a strikethrough) are essential
to what follows. Steps a. and b. are fairly standard IMAP account setup. Step
c. is where the confusion can arise.
At the outset, assume for simplicity that neither ‘Empty messages from the
Deleted items folder on exit’ nor ‘Purge deleted messages when leaving IMAP
folders’ are checked (these options are in Tools / Options / Advanced /
Maintenance).
a. Identify IMAP folders
Select the account name in the LH vertical column (it will be immediately
above Inbox).
Select IMAP folders…
Click Reset list
This will refresh WLM with a list of all the folder names available from
your IMAP mail service provider.
Ensure that all these are also selected in the Visible tab box,
The list of folders under Inbox (under the IMAP account name) should then be
an exact copy of these names.
b. Set the IMAP folders to be used ‘outgoing’ (see below)
Select Tools / Accounts / double-click an IMAP account / select IMAP tab
Set the Root Folder box to be ‘Inbox’
Select ‘Check for new messages in all folders’
Select ‘Store special folders on IMAP server’
Ensure that the path entries in the four boxes below are exactly (e.g.)
Drafts
Sent
Spam
Trash
These names (Inbox, Drafts, etc) will vary with the IMAP email service being
used and it may not be possible to set all of them. They are for outbound
transfers, e.g. a sent mail item from WLM or a draft item transferred from
WLM to the central IMAP server. For inbound transfers, an item placed in e.g.
a Sent IMAP folder by a colleague at another PC will be transferred to the
WLM IMAP folder which has the name used by the IMAP email service. This is
true even if the Sent name specified in Select ‘Store special folders on IMAP
server’ is different (since the latter only applies to WLM’s own Sent items
being transferred outbound) or if the ‘Store special folders on IMAP server’
tickbox is not set.
For these outbound transfers, if either the Root folder name is wrong or
unspecified*, WLM does not complain, but silently uses the appropriate
Storage Folder instead. If the root folder name is specified correctly, but
any or all of the four path entries are wrong, for example, if my IMAP email
service uses “Sent” as the name of its Sent items IMAP folder and I specify
“SentThings” as the path for Sent items in ‘Store special folders on IMAP
server’, WLM will file my sent mail in SentThings, but a Sent mail item from
a colleague (i.e. sent to someone else, not me, and thus not an Inbox item)
will appear in Sent.
* this may not I believe apply to Microsoft Exchange Server IMAP
If the Root folder is specified wrongly, the IMAP email service provider’s
folders (other than Inbox) are displayed in the LH column under Inbox and
left-aligned with the word Inbox. If they are not displayed or are displayed
right-indented, the Root folder has probably been specified wrongly.
WLM ignores the “Check for new messages in ALL folders” tickbox and checks
for new items in all (visible) folders – not just the Inbox – whether this
tickbox is ticked or not.
Note finally that specifying the Root folder name (often “Inbox”) is not
necessary for receiving mail into an WLM IMAP account Inbox, but is necessary
if other IMAP folders (Trash, Sent etc) for that account are to be used.
c. Deleted items settings
If IMAP folders are set up correctly (as above) and one of the folders is
‘Deleted items’ or (more usually) ‘Trash’, there are two ‘deleted items’
settings which interact in a way which can be confusing and result in deleted
emails apparently vanishing or not being stored where expected.
- deselecting (or not selecting) ‘Use the deleted item folder for IMAP
accounts’ (in Tools / Options / Advanced) AND selecting ‘Show Deleted
Messages’ (in View / Show or Hide) results in e.g. Inbox items being
displayed with a strikethrough and a red X
- selecting (or not deselecting) ‘Use the deleted item folder for IMAP
accounts’ does not allow the ‘Show Deleted Messages’ option to be displayed.
Items deleted from e.g. the IMAP account’s Inbox are moved to that account’s
Deleted items or Trash (or whatever) folder. Items which are already deleted
(i.e. displayed with a strikethrough) before ‘Use the deleted item folder for
IMAP accounts’ is selected are moved to the account’s Deleted items (or
whatever) folder and displayed with the strikethrough removed
- deselecting (when selected) ‘Use the deleted item folder for IMAP
accounts’ results in any items in the account’s deleted items folder
remaining where they are: they are NOT moved to the folder they were deleted
from.
In addition, deselecting ‘Use the deleted item folder for IMAP accounts’
results in the ‘Show Deleted Messages’ option reappearing UNSELECTED, even it
was selected when last displayed. In other words, if I start with ‘Use the
deleted item folder for IMAP accounts’ unselected and ‘Show Deleted Messages’
selected, then select ‘Use the deleted item folder for IMAP accounts’, then
deselect ‘Use the deleted item folder for IMAP accounts’, the ‘Show Deleted
Messages’ option reappears but UNSELECTED. Any messages subsequently deleted
from e.g. the Inbox will then appear to vanish unless this behavior is
understood and ‘Show Deleted Messages’ is reselected
- if ‘Use the deleted item folder for IMAP accounts’ is selected, but the
Root folder name is not set or is set wrongly, WLM will NOT silently use the
Storage Folders ‘Deleted items’ folder (as it would use a Storage Folder for
e.g. Sent items); instead the deleted items appear to vanish (they are not
displayed in any folders but also have not been purged)
I hope this boring and tedious description nevertheless proves of some help.
I guess what has thrown other users is that the ‘Use the deleted item folder
for IMAP accounts’ option has never, as far I know, appeared in Outlook
Express or Outlook. The IMAP convention is to use strikethroughs in the
items’ original folders as this is much more efficient for IMAP than
folder-to-folder transfers.
Win7fan
To simulate the "Deleted Items" folder from Outlook, I created an IMAP
folder named "Archive", then set up a rule to process in-coming messages
in my IMAP Inbox. The rule moves a copy into the Archive folder for all
in-coming messages. While this slows down mail retrieval, it
accomplishes the goal of keeping an archive of old e-mail messages.
In Outlook 2007, click on your IMAP in-box. Choose Tools->Rules and
Alerts... From here, you can create the rule that archives your
in-coming messages.
Note that your archive folder does not need to be an IMAP folder. If
you instead use a Personal Folder, the copy will only be kept locally in
your .PST file associated with Outlook.
--
Win7fan
Serena
FINALLY something addressing my mysteriously disappearing emails! Then I
read your instructions in regards to setting up the IMAP folder, the setting
in Tools/Options, etc. Fabulously written! The question of the day is:
What if it's not true for me?
When you reference the 'Use the deleted item folder for IMAP accounts'
checkbox, mine is checked and my e-mails are still disappearing. There is an
IMAP folder called "Trash" and there's nothing new in there. Any ideas on
where I can look next to actually find where my real trash is going?
Gary VanderMolen [MVP]
Since you did not observe the custom here of quoting the post
you are responding to, we have no idea what you are referring to.
Please repost and quote the text of the message you are referring to.
--
Gary VanderMolen, Microsoft MVP (Mail)
Microsoft MVP Program: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
"Serena" <Ser...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:28FDCB96-EE90-4D05...@microsoft.com...
Fischer@discussions.microsoft.com Al Fischer
Al Fischer
I am in the process of migrating to Win7 and changing my email provider.
LIVE has been a mess to understand and configure as I wished, This info was
abosolutely the most helpful. Again THANK YOU!
Ildhund
"Gary VanderMolen [MVP]" <ga...@NoMail.invalid> wrote in message news:#P0PLA2r...@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Since you did not observe the custom here of quoting the post you are responding to, we have no idea what you are referring to.
The next poster did, and his reference header reveals that the post they're both praising is this unsigned one by decomplexity in September last:
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windows.live.mail.desktop/msg/d107eb3eaa66fdfd
If Winston's watching, he might consider blogging it in view of the number of questions raised about IMAP. If he does, he should include a rider to the effect that it's a bit different with Gmail and probably a few other idiosyncratic implementations of IMAP (AOL?). But for most users (notably institutional ones) the post is a mine of useful information.
--
Noel
davidhindle
"decomplexity" wrote:
> IMAP Deleted and Sent items – some answers.....
Thank you for this very useful posting. Taking this as a starting point
I've been able to get sent emails appearing where they should - but the
process was somewhat weird!
Firstly, the "root folder" on the server in question was "INBOX" rather than
"Inbox", which required a bit of guesswork.
Secondly, though I put the "Sent" name as "Sent", the emails still went into
the Storage folder. Inspired by the root folder name, I changed the "Sent"
name to "SENT", but when I re-linked to get the folders from the server, the
"Sent" folder disappeared altogether! So I put the "Sent" name back to
"Sent" and re-linked again - and now the "Sent" folder is back, and
subsequent sent items actually show in it !!