Setting up old acct as IMAP in Outlook to download sent emails from mobile

Topic

New Reply

[Susan Bradley]

Greetings!

I am a long-time Outlook user and well-versed in POP3 vs. IMAP.  No issues there, but I have a rather unique use case. I am running Outlook 2016 on Windows 10. When I say Outlook below I mean Outlook running in Windows.

I have had an old ISP email for years that I ran as POP3 in outlook and only downloaded emails when I wanted to archive them. I ran my phone and tablet as IMAP and this worked for me.  Essentially, my mobile devices were used day-to-day and whatever email was left after quite a while, when space was tight at ISP, I downloaded to Outlook.  I don’t use Outlook on a daily basis any more to manage my email.  It is more of an archive device for me.

I have now transferred to another email address and service and I have setup that one as IMAP on my phone, tablet, and outlook and all is well.

My question is this.  That old email account is still setup in outlook as POP3.  I have all the incoming history and sent email from my Outlook.  However, any sent email from my mobile devices setup as IMAP (and it is a lot) is not in Outlook.   I have researched this and am I correct if I change the password for the POP3 setup of my old email account and then set it up as IMAP as a new email account in outlook…..it will then sync and I will have all of those sent emails that I can then copy to a PST folder in outlook for archive purposes?  I don’t really want to upload them to my new email service as some do, that is not necessary. And since my mobile devices are IMAP they will stay there too.

Once I copy over all of the sent email to a PST folder in Outlook I guess I could change the password for that IMAP account as I do not need to sync that going forward.  I don’t say I would delete the old email account (either IMAP or POP3) as I have read that doing this sometimes makes folders disappear?  Seems to be mostly on Mac but don’t want to have that happen…  If I am for sure copying these emails to a PST folder I create, seems they should remain regardless.

Will this work? Am I missing something?

Also, could I setup a new, blank PST file and have it available in my main Outlook folder area.  And then use that spearate PST file to copy all of those old sent emails.  That way my live PST file does not grow by a large amount.  Just thought of that! I have never used more than one PST…..

Thanks!

WSBJB

 

 

 

• This topic was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by Susan Bradley.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by WSBJB.

Reply | Quote

Replies

You do not need to change the password to use IMAP.

Can you login to webmail at the old provider and then download all your sent mail?
If so you can then cancel the old account if you wish.

Separate PST files should be no problem in Outlook. Make sure you back them up on an external device, along with your normal backup.

cheers, Paul

Reply | Quote

Thanks for the reply.  Here are a few comments/questions:

(You do not need to change the password to use IMAP.)

The reason I mentioned this is when I add the IMAP version of the old email address to outlook (using different ports), for a short period I would have both the POP3 version previously setup and the temporary IMAP version active at the same time. It seems like this might create some sync issues but perhaps I am wrong. That was why I was thinking about essentially making the POP3 version non-functional while I use the IMAP and get that copy task done.  Then I can put the correct password back.

(Can you login to webmail at the old provider and then download all your sent mail?)

I sure wish they had this option.  Their solution for exporting is to forward each email. 🙂

(Separate PST files should be no problem in Outlook.)

That is great.  Every other time I have setup a PST it was along with a POP3 account like I have now.  I guess I should know this but how do I setup a separate PST file that does not have a POP3 email address flowing into it, but yet is available in outlook to create folders and move emails to?

Thanks!

Reply | Quote

Some reading, here.
The bottom line is to setup the old mail as IMAP and then export to PST.

Make sure there is no other account (POP) in that Outlook connected to the same email because you may end up copying mail back to the server.

cheers, Paul

Reply | Quote

Thanks Paul for the link. For anyone else interested in doing this, after reading above and links and others here are steps as I understand;

In Outlook:

-Change old email POP3 password to anything (jn Outlook)so it does not sync

-Setup old email as IMAP

– Once synced export IMAP folder(s) to a PST file.(OST to PST)

– Open the PST created above in Outlook. It will appear in folder tree so you have access to the old emails. Note this assumes you will eventually not have access to the imap server.

This keeps your live PST from growing

-Delete IMAP account

-Change POP3 password back to correct one for future use

As an alternative to exporting to a PST the IMAP emails can be dragged to a new or existing folder of the current PST or imported.

Thanks for the help!

Reply | Quote