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Geek Culture / [SOLVED] can someone help with a weird email problem?

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Green Gandalf
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Posted: 10th Oct 2012 13:30
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Outlook Express on my old XP laptop started behaving strangely two days ago. In my attempts at solving the problem I managed somehow to reset my main account which means that whenever I try to receive messages it tries to download all my old messages from the server going back as far as 2008 (I keep them on the server so I can access them easily anywhere). I thought that if I moved the old messages out of the server's Inbox into a new folder with a different name then they wouldn't be downloaded. Wrong! They are still downloaded! So my question is this: is there a simple way of keeping the messages in such a way that they won't be downloaded?

I always download my messages on to my various computers so I can easily refer to old messages without accessing the Internet - Broadband is painfully slow here.

[I seem to be posting a lot of these questions lately - but that's because this is one place I can get helpful advice quickly. ]
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Duke E
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Posted: 10th Oct 2012 15:55
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Outlook Express uses the database file: Pop3uidl.dbx to track the messages it has previously "seen".

If you have that file backed up somewhere you can replace the current copy, as the current database file might have been corrupted.

I'm not sure if the file tracks the messages by the universal unique identifier (UUID) created by your user profile. If not, you might have luck copying the file from one of your other computers to the problematic one.


Regards
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Green Gandalf
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Posted: 10th Oct 2012 16:36
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Sounds worth a try. Thanks.
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MrValentine
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Posted: 10th Oct 2012 17:01 Edited at: 10th Oct 2012 17:03
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If you want to have them offline... then you have no choice... aside from using the Outlook Data file... [always copy emails before moving or deleting...] {EDIT - of course this data file usage should ha been done prior to the whole issue}

I would suggest you used Windows Live Mail it is a free upgrade and behaves more like the modern Outlooks...

But if you are using XP... which is my guess here... [Or are you on Win7 using XP mode?] and are relying on Outlook Express for other app support [legacy support] then I guess you are stuck for choices...

I have Outlook 2010... but also have access to XP mode which has Outlook Express so I could help, but only later in the day...

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Phaelax
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Posted: 10th Oct 2012 18:47
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Is this a POP3 or IMAP account? If it's the latter, your email will still be on the server as it only copies all your mail to your local machine.

Quote: "I would suggest you used Windows Live Mail it is a free upgrade"

It was apparently a mandatory upgrade to my hotmail account.

"You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world!" ~Tick
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Green Gandalf
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Posted: 10th Oct 2012 19:27 Edited at: 10th Oct 2012 19:29
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Quote: "your email will still be on the server as it only copies all your mail to your local machine."


Yes, I know. That isn't the problem. The problem is that OE (yes I'm on an old XP machine ) insists on downloading (or copying ) all my previously downloaded messages. That is currently several hundred messages, many containing large attachments. I'm down to the last 300 at the moment.

But what's baffling me is that I thought it would only download messages from my Inbox. It doesn't. It's downloading all the messages that I moved out of the Inbox on the server.

[Apologies for a MrValentine style edit ]
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Phaelax
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Posted: 10th Oct 2012 21:43
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Usually when I get email glitches, I just delete the account from the client and re-add it. Worst case scenario is you download your email yet again.

"You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world!" ~Tick
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MrValentine
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Posted: 11th Oct 2012 00:16
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Quote: "[Apologies for a MrValentine style edit ]"


No need to apologise its the norm now lol >.<

Quote: "It was apparently a mandatory upgrade to my hotmail account."


Not Outlook.com... but Windows Live 'Essentials' Mail...

Umm... usually on my Outlook... I transfer into a sub folder [An Hotmail/Outlook.com account inside Outlook 2010 downloads all sub folders...] when I reconnect I can ignore certain folders in the sync list... Perhaps OE does not feature this... so I would say... again make the move of the files on your online account interface... into folders then you can just focus on the main folder... err this is hard to eplain...

ooo looksie here is a MrValentine style edit... but look, it is magic!

So umm you can PM me if I can help further, I need to know the email provider, my guess is you do not want to mention it here...

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Green Gandalf
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Posted: 11th Oct 2012 02:19
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Quote: "my guess is you do not want to mention it here"


Possibly not - but you could look at my email button.
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MrValentine
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Posted: 11th Oct 2012 02:48
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Quote: "Possibly not - but you could look at my email button. "


Facepalm email sent...

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Green Gandalf
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Posted: 11th Oct 2012 12:52
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Quote: "Facepalm email sent"


Received and understood.

Replied briefly - away for a few days now so won't return to this till next week.
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MrValentine
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Posted: 11th Oct 2012 12:56
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Epic... Have fun!
Be safe!

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Green Gandalf
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Posted: 11th Oct 2012 16:54
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This post has been marked by the post author as the answer.
Couldn't resist having a final check of my laptop's email before leaving and realised that it was my turn for a facepalm.

I'd accidentally changed my non-TGC email account to use my TGC email address. So the duplicated downloaded messages were from the TGC email address not from the non-TGC account. But I was moving the non-TGC messages around on the server which is presumably why it had no effect.

Problem sorted now hopefully.

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