Editor's Blog0 min ago
Using Outlook
8 Answers
I have bought Microsoft 365 and planning on using Outlook for email, calendar and contacts. My post lockdown resolution is to file the emails I want to keep and delete the rest. I have thousands!! I decided to use Outlook since I have it.
If I set up folders and put emails away as I plan, should I decide not to use Outlook in the future and move to another platform, will I still see all those emails as they would no longer be in the inbox?
If I set up folders and put emails away as I plan, should I decide not to use Outlook in the future and move to another platform, will I still see all those emails as they would no longer be in the inbox?
Answers
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I'd also be interested to hear the correct answer - I've a feeling they wouldn't. I use Outlook as part of the MS package and when I got a new laptop and had to reinstall it the folders (of which I have a lot) were not there and nor were the emails I'd moved into them. I got round it as I'd saved it all to hard drive before I switched and they pasted in fine (with folders).
It depends who your email provider is and what sort of email system you use.
If you are just using outlook as a desktop client for something like gmail then you don't need to worry, as all your emails will reside on the gmail (or other) server. I don;t use outlook, but I assume you can synch all your folders between your desktop and the main server.
If you use a dedicated outlook email address then you will be using something called POP3 protocol, which basically means all your emails are stored locally, and you will need to make sure they are backed up.
If you are just using outlook as a desktop client for something like gmail then you don't need to worry, as all your emails will reside on the gmail (or other) server. I don;t use outlook, but I assume you can synch all your folders between your desktop and the main server.
If you use a dedicated outlook email address then you will be using something called POP3 protocol, which basically means all your emails are stored locally, and you will need to make sure they are backed up.
My understanding (which I think is correct but I'm not guaranteeing it) is that if Outlook is configured to use IMAP for syncing between your email provider's server and it's own local storage, the emails will still be on the remote server and will therefore download into the Inbox of any other email client (such as Thunderbird) that you might use in the future. However they'll only be in folders if those folders also exist on the remote server (and not just locally in Outlook). Assuming that you're using IMAP, you can view which folders (if any) exist on the remote server by following the instructions here
https:/
or, possibly simpler, by bypassing Outlook altogether and logging into your email account (using your preferred web browser) through the provider's webpage.
However if you've got Outlook configured to use the older POP3 protocol for transferring emails, then (unless you've changed the default settings) mail will automatically be deleted from the remote server when you use Outlook to transfer it to local storage on your computer.
The more I think about it now, the easiest way to answer your question is probably to log into your email account using webmail (as at the end of my first paragraph). Whatever you see there should be accessible, via IMAP, if you decide to use a different email client. i.e. if there's only an inbox, with no folders, that's what will get forwarded to the new client. If the folders are present, they should be forwarded to. If the inbox is empty, you've almost certainly been using POP3, rather than IMAP, meaning that there's nothing available to transfer to a new email client.
However you should also remember that it's usually possible to export all of your emails from Outlook into another client anyway, avoiding the risk of finding out whether they can be downloaded again from the remote server. For example, the instructions for getting email from Outlook imported into Thunderbird can be found here:
https:/
https:/
or, possibly simpler, by bypassing Outlook altogether and logging into your email account (using your preferred web browser) through the provider's webpage.
However if you've got Outlook configured to use the older POP3 protocol for transferring emails, then (unless you've changed the default settings) mail will automatically be deleted from the remote server when you use Outlook to transfer it to local storage on your computer.
The more I think about it now, the easiest way to answer your question is probably to log into your email account using webmail (as at the end of my first paragraph). Whatever you see there should be accessible, via IMAP, if you decide to use a different email client. i.e. if there's only an inbox, with no folders, that's what will get forwarded to the new client. If the folders are present, they should be forwarded to. If the inbox is empty, you've almost certainly been using POP3, rather than IMAP, meaning that there's nothing available to transfer to a new email client.
However you should also remember that it's usually possible to export all of your emails from Outlook into another client anyway, avoiding the risk of finding out whether they can be downloaded again from the remote server. For example, the instructions for getting email from Outlook imported into Thunderbird can be found here:
https:/
I do recommend using something like Thunderbird, which is free and which does all the synching stuff. I am sure other clients do the same, but as far as I know if you use an actual outlook email address (which is NOT of course necessarily the case if you are just using outlook as a desktop email client) then POP3 (not IMAP) is your only option.
Just to confuse matters tho, there is also outlook.com, which is a web-based IMAP email system.
There's also Microsoft Exchange server, which I believe also does the IMAP stuff, with cloud backups, but which I think is quite expensive and not really a sane option for a private user.
Just to confuse matters tho, there is also outlook.com, which is a web-based IMAP email system.
There's also Microsoft Exchange server, which I believe also does the IMAP stuff, with cloud backups, but which I think is quite expensive and not really a sane option for a private user.
^^^ Thunderbird is probably far more reliable than Outlook. (I've lost count of the number of times I've had to tell people on AB that the best way to solve their Outlook problems is to delete their email account from it, restart Outlook and then create it again. Such problems seem to be far rarer with Thunderbird).
Thunderbird can be used to access Outlook.com email addresses via both POP3 and IMAP:
https:/
and
https:/
As Ichkeria indicates though, it doesn't help that Microsoft have named two entirely different things (an email client and a webmail service) with the same 'Outlook' branding. It makes things damned difficult here when someone posts a question about 'a problem with Outlook'!
Thunderbird can be used to access Outlook.com email addresses via both POP3 and IMAP:
https:/
and
https:/
As Ichkeria indicates though, it doesn't help that Microsoft have named two entirely different things (an email client and a webmail service) with the same 'Outlook' branding. It makes things damned difficult here when someone posts a question about 'a problem with Outlook'!
wow thank you both for such useful responses. I have linked my account using IMAP and will do as you suggest i.e. log in via webmail and see if the folders exist there or just in outlook.
I want to use Outlook as I have just bought the Microsoft 365 package and its familiar to me. However I ask the question because I am not sure I will always want to renew.
I want to use Outlook as I have just bought the Microsoft 365 package and its familiar to me. However I ask the question because I am not sure I will always want to renew.
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