I have used OUTLOOK EXPRESS as a mail program for the past eight years.In February, I retired that computer, and bought a new I Mac. The IMac has its own Apple mail program, and I’ve received, and deleted 372 E mails as of this week. How do I know this? I had to bring my new machine in for a minor repair, and for one day, I booted up the old one. Lo and behold, I had 372 E mails waiting for me. Emails that I had already received, and deleted. ( Outlook Express doesn’t know I abandoned it).
Is there anyway I can shut this e mail program down, so it does not collect my mail anymore? I don’t want to trash it, as it makes for a good back up system but, I am envisioning thousands of e mails sitting there after a period of time. Sooner or later, they will be leaking onto the floor.
In Outlook Express, go to Tools > Options > General tab. Make sure “Send and receive emails at startup” and “Check for new messages every…” are both unchecked. This should keep it from automatically getting mail. It also sounds like you have OE set to launce automatically when Windows loads. If this is the case, you might want to disable it. Go to Start > Run and type MSCONFIG and hit <enter>. Go to the Startup tab and uncheck the entry for Outlook Express (msimn.exe) and click OK.
If the computer isn’t running, it cannot collect email.
I think your problem is that the IMac isn’t set to delete the emails it receives on the server, after it retrieves them. Perhaps a Mac expert can tell you how to change that. (I know nothing about Macs).
I assume the IMac is getting emails from the same POP account the PC w/ Outlook Express was getting email from?
That is most certainly correct. The e-mails are being left on the server. That is a feature that some people want for backups or for home and work computers for instance. OE didn’t really do anything wrong. Your Mac e-mail client probably has a setting to receive and trigger a delete from the server that you can set.
An easy way to address this is simply delete your e-mail profile from OE. That is under accounts and contains your name, e-mail, address and server information. The e-mails that are already there will stay there.
According to a Mac-using buddy, Macs are set by default NOT to delete email from the server. To change it, go to Preferences > Accounts > Advanced tab and check the appropriate box.
That’s correct. The option is “Remove copy from server after retrieving a message:” and you can further specify “When moved from Inbox,” “Right Away,” “After One Day,” “After One Week,” and “After One Month.” Personally, I retain all copies on my server, as a backup and because I often need to access my email from foreign computers.
This is probably a better idea than what I suggested (setting the Mac to delete emails from the server). You might want to keep them on the server for backup purposes.