How to set Outlook to deliver all IMAP email to Outlook.PST and In Box

Hello everyone,

I posted this on the email forum and did not get any replies. I hope that I have better luck getting help here, since this is also an Outlook issue.

The problem is that Outlook wants to deliver IMAP email to a separate PST, not the Outlook.PST, and also puts the email in separate In Boxes.

I first encountered this problem when I set up Outlook 2010, because the automatic configuration of my email accounts (I have 3.) set the server to IMAP instead of POP, which is what I had been using. This would not have been a problem, except that Outlook also created separate PST files and Outlook In Boxes for each account. With POP, I always had all of my email in the same In Box and Outlook.PST, which is what I prefer.


Now, to the present problem. I now have an iPhone, and IMAP is a better way to manage email between 2 devices (my notebook PC and the iPhone). So, the problem is twofold:

How do I set up my new MobileMe IMAP account in Outlook to deliver email to the Outlook.PST file, and in the main In Box?

and

How can I change my present Gmail POP accounts to IMAP and have them also delivered to the Outlook.PST file, and the main In Box?

Your assistance is greatly appreciated and recognized with appropriate "rep".

Thank you for your consideration of my issue.

Getting started with IMAP for Gmail - Gmail Help
hope this can help you.

ryo,

Thanks for trying to help me. However, I already know how Gmail handles IMAP. What I need to know is how to configure Outlook to handle IMAP email accounts my way. With IMAP accounts, Outlook puts each one in a separate PST file, and I like all of my stuff in the same Outlook.PST, so that I can back it up easier. Also, with separate IMAP accounts, Outlook creates several separate In Boxes. I like reading all my mail from one In Box.

Take good care,

hm..if i don't wrong. you can try to use rules on it. so whenever someone send message to you, that's rule you want to setting is from sender to one boxes that's you means and can to backup to the pst folder.

That is definitely more work than I want to do. I want Outlook to be set up to automatically deliver all messages to the same In Box and use the same Outlook.PST. It shouldn't be that hard. Thanks, though.

for now i though is use rules.
but maybe other have software or some idea to set it.
in my opinion..why people always want to use instant?? don't all of the instant ways can run well.
the points is. how it make it solved, even the ways is hard to walk..

ryo,

I appreciate your sentiment, but if there is not an easy way to accomplish this, then I would rather just live with it. I thought that someone would know a way, or at least be able to tell me that there is not a way. I would prefer to hear about a way to just click some settings to change the behavior. That is what I am looking for, an easy solution. Or, if there is none, then I would like confirmation of that. Thanks again,

it's ok.. maybe someone in here have other idea of this. and so do i, if i got idea.. i'll update it.

I think that the separate PST file arrangement is built in, and that the only way to achieve your goal is to make a rule. It is easy to set up rules - you just want a rule that moves mail that comes into each of your specified accounts to a folder of your choice (e.g. "My Inbox").

If you do this, though, there are a couple of things to watch out for. If you don't permanently delete IMAP mail messages in the default inboxes, they will stay there and will eventually exceed your quota. On the other hand, you will still be able to access them by logging in to your IMAP server from wherever you please.

If you do elect to permanently delete the IMAP messages, they will exist only as locally stored messages on your machine and will not be easily accessible from other devices or computers.

You pays your money....

clunkfish,

Thank you for your helpful, explanative reply. I think that this is more than I want to undertake with Outlook, since I am saying goodbye to my old friend (Outlook) anyway in migrating to iPhone. During this process, I can live with having separate In Boxes. It's too bad Microsoft doesn't have a "virtual mailbox" like iPhone does for all email. That would alleviate this problem. I just thought that if there was an easy fix, I would do it.

Now, for you and anyone else out there in TV land, could you please tell me if there is a way to "convert" the POP accounts in Outlook to IMAP accounts, or must I delete them and re-set them up again?

Thank you again, much appreciation!

juanantoniod said:

could you please tell me if there is a way to "convert" the POP accounts in Outlook to IMAP accounts, or must I delete them and re-set them up again?

Click to expand...

Again, as far as I can see, there is no easy fix. When you set the accounts up you designate them as POP or IMAP, and that's how they stay

Okay, so when I set up the IMAP accounts, how do I get the folders (that I save emails in) to sync between devices? Should I just set them up in Gmail, my mail provider, and Gmail will download them to Outlook and iPhone, or do I have to set up the corresponding folders in Outlook and iPhone?

Thanks again!

When you set up an IMAP account in Outlook, an Inbox associated with that account will automatically be created in Outlook and all your IMAP mail for that account will appear in that Inbox in Outlook on your PC.

With an IMAP account, the emails remain on the remote IMAP server, so to access your emails from a different device (say, your iPhone), you'd need to set the iPhone up to access the same IMAP server, using whatever built-in or third party mail software is available on the device.

The good thing about IMAP is that because all the emails are in one remote place, wherever you access them from you will always be in sync. Emails you permanently delete will no longer appear on any device; new emails will be visible on all devices.

Hope that all makes sense

clunkfish,

Thanks for following this thread and my (sometimes) duplicate questions. I appreciate all your help, especally the thorough explanations and warnings about IMAP accounts. Wish me luck!

Take good care,

~Antonio

Antonio, I just saw your post and was wondering if you ever figured out how to combine various IMAP emails into one box or did you just move on?

I have the same problem.

Thanks

OneRcknMan

How can I succinctly put this...?

Hello OneRcknMan,

From what I know about IMAP now, that I did not know then, I do not think that there is even a way to do this. (Have multiple IMAP accounts deliver to the same Outlook Inbox.) I cannot explain it very well from a technical standpoint, but I just think that it would mess up everything on your other devices (the whole reason for having it set up as IMAP) if you tried to do it this way in Outlook.

If you are not using any other email client that Outlook, than I would just use the POP service to get my mail, and make sure to set the accounts up MANUALLY, to SPECIFY that ALL of the emails go to the ONE Outlook Inbox.

In my case, I was just kind of sick of working with Outlook, because I had worked with it to death trying to get it to manage my tasks, and not use the Outlook To Do list -- which is impossible, I later learned, but that is another story. I also needed the ability to work with my email on multiple devices, which I hope in the near future to be an iPad 2 for the majority of the time. So, for now, I use the Gmail Webmail client, which I am learning to like. [Using Gmail's Webmail client in Google Chrome makes a big difference in terms of ease of use.]

As for tasks management, I am still searching for the ideal solution. Currently, I am really liking the custom icons, checkboxes, fonts and colors that I can place on lines of text in OneNote, to make them appear as a task list. The only thing is that it does not autosort, so I must make my task list, then go to Word and prioritize and then sort the paragraphs, and then copy them back to OneNote to then add the icons, etc. I know it sounds laborious, but it is the best solution that I have found.

Lately, especially, I have discovered the OneNote 'checklist' 'toolbox', which offers an array of options for making these custom check lists. Unfortunately, it does not allow one to move an event forward or strike thru an incomplete event that I did not do, but I don't want to delete either. So, in the future, I may just build my own task list toolbox, which would have this functionality and more, including drag and drop, as well as the Franklin Planner Compass method of planning your life.

Well, I hope that I have more than answered your question, but should you require any additional information, or wish to provide the VC for my task list toolbox endeavor, please do contact me.

Take good care,

~Antonio

Possible Solution

Hi,

Not sure if this will suit you but I wanted to do the same thing, and I found that by setting up the Gmail account as POP3 in Outlook instead of IMAP, you have the option to select the PST file you want to download into.

The instructions for setting up Gmail as POP3 are found here:

Outlook 2007 - Gmail Help

This worked perfectly for me as I have two email accounts going into one PST file.

You have the option within Gmail options also to mark your emails read, archive or delete in Gmail automatically once they are downloaded depending on your preferences.

Hope this helps.

Good luck.