I am using Outlook Express 6 and several POP3 accounts. Generally I just download the emails and everything goes fine but because I am traveling and I wanted to have access from other computers I checked the “Leave copy of messages on server”. Well, now it seems I cannot get access to the emails. When I do the connection, it does the “downloading headers” thing and then nothing. It seems the messages are there but OE does not download them, only the headers. Maybe it somehow thinks it already has those messages. I have never done this thing before so maybe I am missing something. How can I get to my messages on the POP3 server?
Um… I’m going on memory here.
Try clicking on your email account (the bit the inbox is stored under) in the “folders” column on the left.
On the main page you should now be given a list of all your folders with some buttons above. Click once on the inbox and then click on the “settings” button at the top. Hopefully, there is a list there where you specify if you want to download all of the messages or just the headers.
Hope that helps!
You’re correct, sailor. The messages are there on the server, but OE will not download them again since they’ve been marked as Read.
If you turn off Leave messages on server then you’ll get all your emails one time, but they will be deleted off the server.
There’s a no-frills way to read your mail directly off the server if you want. Go to the Run line and type telnet <your mail server> 110. Type user <your username>, hit Enter, then pass <your password> and hit Enter. Once you’re logged in you can view the list of messages with the list command and read individual messages with retr <#>. dele <#> will delete a message.
This is especially handy if someone has sent you a big file attachment which you want to delete without downloading.
**Number[/]thanks for your post.
>> The messages are there on the server, but OE will not download them again since they’ve been marked as Read.
I must be missing something here. I thought the whole point of leaving them on the server was so you could read them again. What’s the point of leaving them if you cannot get at them again? Or is this just an Outlook Express thing which only makes sense to MS? Other programs give you the option of seeing headers and downloading several times?
I will experiment with Telnet and see what I can do but if I would have known this I would have stuck with Hotmail.
You can read them again, but only once. OE actually handles this better than some other clients - Netscape 4.x will immediately delete all the messages if you uncheck the Leave mail on server box.
POP3 just isn’t designed to handle this kind of thing very well. You get more options with IMAP, but not many ISPs offer it.
Web-based email is your best bet while traveling. Some sites will let you check your POP account and store the mail on their server so you can access it anytime. I don’t know any good ones offhand, but they’re out there.
My wife uses this feature all of the time. She reads her work-related email both on her machine at the office (where the “leave the mail on the server” option is not checked) and on her machine at home (where it is checked).
If she first reads a particular email at the office, it’s downloaded to her office machine and removed from the server.
If she happens to read it on her home machine, however, the email stays on the server - and she gets to read it again at her office machine (and store it there).
Well, it turns out the issue is much more complex than it first appeared and I was confused just because I had never used this feature before. It turns out it is a specific probem with one specific computer and one specific POP3 account.
After much testing I have determined that on my home computer the whole thing works fine with all the several POP3 accounts but on the laptop, for some unknown reason, the specific POP3 account I was trying to use does not work right . . .
shoot! :: slapping my forehead:: after a couple of days of messing with the whole thing, just as I was writing this, a spark lit my brain and the cause became obvious. Sure enough, I had the email filters on the laptop configured in such a way that only the emails from that specific server were being deleted without asking further.
Well, I guess it’s a good thing I finally figured it out.
Thanks all. I think I have finally figured it out and it should be working correctly now.