Prevent outlook express dowloading past mail

I have just setup Outlook express usung instructions from gmail successsfully, but Outlook is now trying to download all my email from gmail.

This amounts to over 3000 messages with lots of Mb attachments.

I have set gmail settings to forward any mail from 6pm and gone into properties to try and check any boxes in outlook express to prevent these downloads. There are no boxes to check.I have been very unsuccessful solving this problem over the last hour
What am I missing?
When I click send in outlook there are 2 tasks printed which I can read.. it checks for incoming mail and downloads all messages from inbox
thanks
 
did you setup your account to be POP or IMAP?

If it is POP it will download all of your mail to your local computer
If it is IMAP it only downloads the headers to your machine and then
downloads the email when you go to read, it but all of your mail
remains on the server
 
Gmail is great

not really your question but why use outlook express at all why not just use gmail



I haven't used outlook for about three years. Been using webmail thru my ISP for that time however have now switched to Gmail recently and find the funcationality and generous file attachment size for outgoing mail especially pleasing.

I have diverted all my ISP webmail to Gmail so no need to change my email address in any hurry (or at all for now).............all I need now is a smartphone to be more in touch on the go, and not need my notebook when only away for a day or two, or on holidays.
 
IMO, for general use an email client is way more convenient than logging into the web. It also allows emails to be stored and backed up locally from your own computer.

I use Gmail as well, after switching from Hotmail some years ago, but the only time I ever log into the account via the Web is when I'm travelling, or at least away from home without a computer.

I used to use Outlook Express and quite liked it, but once they stopped client access to Hotmail accounts, and I upgraded to their hopeless live mail thing, I dumped both Hotmail and live mail and stuck with Gmail instead (which I was already using anyway). Now I use Gmail, plus my ISP email, with Mozilla Thunderbird. Works a treat!

GP
 
log onto your gmail account and 'archive' all the mail shown in your inbox.

it will take about 4 clicks to archive all 3000 messages.
 
agree with fastback
OE will download and remove (unless told to 'leave a copy of mail on server' in 'account settings') all mail in the server inbox
the only way is to archive older mail into another folder, by gmail web access, other than the inbox
the mail will be retained accessible in gmail
no other folders polled by OE for new content, user created folders, sent mail, deleted items, spam etc are ignored
 
Hi GP,

IMO, for general use an email client is way more convenient than logging into the web. It also allows emails to be stored and backed up locally from your own computer.

Why? Most people are using a web browser and lots of the latest apps are web-based - Twitter, Facebook, Google Docs, Youtube, and so on. To me, it's so much more convenient using the GMail web interface and interacting with all my email in the cloud, than it is to set up and use an email ('fat') client, as my browser is permanently in use.

Why do you need email stored on your own computer? When it dies, you have to restore everything from backup. Urgh... hassle.

If you don't have Internet access, then you can't send emails, you can only read them, and GMail has offline access so you can achieve this aim as well.... :D

Just curious.
 
For me it's mainly a speed and convenience thing.

My email client just sits there running all the time (when the computer's turned on) and periodically gathers my email from a number of different email accounts, putting them all together in my inbox for easy viewing. Takes a 2 second click on the task bar to see what's new there and switch back to whatever I was doing if there's nothing of interest.

And fat clients are generally much faster to use than web-based applications, since everything is local. I can flick back and forward between a pile of emails in the same time it would take me to just read a few on the web, especially across multiple accounts. Depends a little on what you're doing though. If you're just reading or typing, then it takes the same time either way, but if you're doing management activities (organising into folders, deleting, etc), or trying to view 4 or 5 emails at the same time to help you compose another, the fat client is much easier and faster.

Of course it's quite possible I'm not using the web-based services in the most optimal way, but I don't care since I prefer the fat client anyway.

Why do you need email stored on your own computer?
Security and convenience.

Webmail providers may be diligent in backing things up for you, but their terms and conditions will basically say somewhere that they can pretty much do whatever they like with your account and your data whenever they want, including such things as deleting your account and all your data without warning, denying you access, and charging you to use the service. Chances are they may never do any of those things (although Hotmail suddenly started charging for POP access years ago), but I want a copy of all my own data somewhere where I know I can always get access to it.

And the convenience thing is much the same as in the previous comment. Searching and manipulating data locally on my own PC is a lot faster and easier than via the web with a browser (for me, anyway).

As for backing up, for me that's relatively easy since I have mostly automated procedures in place for that, and recovery would be quick too. If the hard disk died, I'd just restore an image - a minute or two to start the app and then go and have a cup of tea or dinner while it does its thing (plus a quick unpack of the very latest data, as images are less frequent). A bit more effort if the whole PC died, but then the same would apply to you to get some way of accessing the web again.

Cheers,
GP
 
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