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IMAP in Outlook - extra notes

Sundry notes to round out our coverage of IMAP in Outlook.

Flags

With Outlook you can only set flags on IMAP messages that are in the Inbox or any other folder but you cannot send or receive messages which are flagged. The Quick click flag option where you can customize the date for the flag is not available for IMAP configured mails.


Authentication

At times you may find Outlook not authenticating the credentials properly with the IMAP server. This might be because of the conflict between the usages of the protocol as Outlook supports IMAP4 protocol whereas some servers maybe using IMAP4rev1 which in turn may hamper the authentication of your credentials and also access to the profile. To resolve this issue you will have to make sure that both the client and server are using the same protocol and for this the ISP/mail host may provide the necessary assistance.


Purging

Another important point related to IMAP server is that when you delete a mail in the server the mail is displayed in strikethrough text in the header list but the message is not deleted from the IMAP mail server until a purge command is used. Here purge simply means flushing out unwanted mails from the server. This task has to be done periodically lest the size of Trash folder might substantially increase crossing the limit of allotted disk space on your mail server which in turn might block incoming mails.


Primary Profile

If you have configured your Outlook for just one account i.e. the IMAP activated mail then all the folders related to this particular mail id will be considered as primary folders. Likewise this account is also by default considered as the primary address for sending and receiving mails. But if you have more than one account then you can choose which one to be the primary one.

If you really get the hang of IMAP you’ll probably make it your primary Outlook account to take advantage of its benefits.

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