I just bought laptop so I can work downstairs as well as on my desktop. Is there a way I can use Outlook on both machines in such a way that they are synchronized? Right now if I open email on one it doesn't appear on the other, and vice versa. Any way around this?
This is a problem I've dealt with for years. Being the geek that I am, I have several computers, and often will want to use one, or the other or another still to read email.
I've settled on one solution, but there are many, many approaches to this problem. Naturally each has both pros and cons.
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To recap the problem, the most common configuration for email uses POP3 accounts that download email to the machine you're reading it on; the machine on which your email program is installed. That means that if you go to another machine to read email using the same technique, the email will get downloaded to that machine instead. Some email on one machine, some email on another ... it can get fairly confusing.
So let's look at some of the alternatives.
Webmail Services - services such as HotMail, GMail and the like are accessible anywhere you have an internet connection. The mail is not downloaded, but rather lives on the HotMail or GMail servers. Login from one machine and you'll see the same email as you would logging in from any other.
There are two problems. The first is simply that you must be on-line to read your email. If you can't get on the internet, you can't read your email.
The more serious problem that I've discussed before, and remind people of often, is that free email services should not be relied on for critical information. By that I mean use them only in conjunction with a backed up, fully supported, email service from your ISP or other email service provider. My favorite approach is to simply automatically forward a copy of all your email from a "real" email account to a free webmail service such as GMail. That way your email can be downloaded, saved and backed up normally using your POP3 account, and yet you can read it from any computer that has connectivity using the free webmail service.
Webmail from your ISP - you may not need to use an additional free service. Many ISPs and email providers now include a web interface to your email as part of their service. The downside here is that these usually only display email that hasn't been downloaded yet. That means that once you read your email by downloading it to your PC, it's no longer accessible via the web interface.
Since it's supported by your ISP, though, it's definitely safer to rely on this type of webmail, and if you felt like it, you could simply not download email at all, relying on the web interface entirely. If you do have a problem, you'll have your ISP to call.
IMAP - IMAP is an alternative to POP3. Rather than downloading your email, a mail program configured to use IMAP leaves the email on your mail server. Depending on how you use and configure your email client, IMAP may require connectivity to even read your mail, though most clients do support local caching.
The great news about IMAP is that in most respects it operates much like you're already used to. Most common email clients including Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Eudora and others, support it. You'll need to check with your ISP or email provider to see if they support it, and exactly how to configure your email client to use it.
Copying your email folders - this is my "plan B". Since Outlook stores all its information in a single file, the ".pst" file, I simply have Outlook installed on multiple machines, configured almost identically. I can read email on machine A, shut down Outlook, copy the pst to machine B, and now pick up with my email on machine B right where I left off on machine A.
This particular approach fits in well with my backup strategy as well, since I copy my PST to several machines each night. Should my laptop, for example, die - I can quickly and fairly seamlessly, switch to my desktop for email.
The downside is that you have to copy the PST. Depending on how big the PST is, how fast your network, and how often you switch machines, that can be a bit of a pain. Also, you need to configure Outlook on multiple machines. That, too, can be a pain since Outlook makes it difficult (nee impossible), to move account settings easily from one machine to another - you have to do it all by hand.
Remote Desktop - this is what I've settled on and have been using for a couple of years now. Outlook is installed and running on my laptop, which either travels with me, or lives in my family room when I'm at home. If I'm in my office at my desktop, I simply use Remote Desktop to open a window to my laptop. Thus I'm always reading email using Outlook on my laptop - even if that laptop is in another room in my house. I find this the simplest, over all, for a home network or even a small business situation.
Not a solution - one thing you'll not is not listed as a solution, and that's using file sharing to share out your email folders and access the single set of folders from multiple computers. Outlook Express, for example, doesn't support folders across the net - at least not without an unsupported hack. Outlook does, but not with two instances of Outlook at the same time. Even running only one instance at a time, Outlook kind of "assumes" that the file is local, and as a result depending on the speed of your network, accessing an Outlook pst across the net can be slow. You'd have to check with other mail clients to determine if, and how well, they support accessing mail folders across the network, but in general I strongly discourage it for your "primary" mail folders. (I do keep my email archives on a network share, and only connect to them as I need to - that seems to work just fine. Usually.)
As you can see there are lots of alternatives. I like my Remote Desktop approach as being simple and effective for me. I have several friends that swear by IMAP, and I have at least one client who's forwarding all his email to his GMail account. All work, and work well.
It's up to you to determine which best fits your needs.
Related:
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Ask Leo! - Are free email services worth it?
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Ask Leo! - How do Outlook and Outlook Express relate?
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Ask Leo! - How do I move my Outlook Express folders to my new machine?
Article C2664 - May 24, 2006
There's a better answer than all of these, IMHO -- which is to use MS Exchange for your email. Exchange integrates tightly with Outlook, and automatically keeps all of your Outlook-equipped PCs in total sync. You don't even have to do "send/receives" - it does real-time sync. And this means not just email, but also other Outlook objects like your calendar, contacts, notes, etc. It even syncs things like whether an email has been read or flagged. You have complete and virtually identical Web access via OWA (Outlook Web Access). Your mail, calendar, contacts, etc. are all stored on the server, so if your machine crashes you can instantly recover everything. And the final touch is that Exchange now supports true "push" email to Windows Mobile phones like the Treo 700w (which I have) -- fully synched with the server and nothing to download. Trust me, this is as close to "email nirvana" as you're going to get.
Problem is that Exchange Server has usually been used only by larger corporations for employee use. But now, there are several vendors offering "hosted Exchange mailboxes" (just search that term in Google). I've tried both 1&1 and 4SmartPhone, and ended up choosing the latter for a few minor reasons -- but both are the same price and both work great. The cost is only $6.99/month for a mailbox, which includes 1 gig of server storage (I keep every email I receive or send), antispam and antivirus scanning, etc. It even includes a free copy of Outlook 2003 if you don't have it already.
Although you get a new email address for your Exchange account, you don't have to really use it -- I simply forward everything from my multiple other accounts (Gmail, Earthlink, business, etc.) to my Exchange account and it's transparent. In Outlook, it's even easy to reply or send email "from" those other accounts so they don't show your Exchange address.
If you really want to do it right, pick up a personal domain with email, and route all your incoming mail to Exchange. 1&1 offers a personal domain for just $5.99 a year, and you can set up as many incoming email addresses as you like -- all forwarded to Exchange.
So for a whopping $90 a YEAR, I've achieved "email nirvana" with lifetime independence from any particular ISP. It's easy to set up, painless to use, and I'll NEVER go back to POP3, IMAP4, or only Webmail again.
I've tried virtually every other solution that was suggested in this thread, and they all have shortcomings. After using this setup for close to a year, I have discovered NO downsides at all.
Hope this helps --
Posted by: Rob Vonderhaar at May 25, 2006 8:40 AMRob Vonderhaar
Microsoft almost make this easy. If you want to be able to send and receive Outlook email, add dates to your diary etc and keep the data synchonised between a PDA and a PC then just use ActiveSync. If only you could use it with your laptop and home PC it woud be perfect. But sadly ActiveSync won't sync btween two full Windows machines.
Maybe the next release of Outlook will offer this :-)
Posted by: Aleks de Gromoboy at May 31, 2006 5:41 AMI want to make POP3 address for remote location accounts.
Posted by: Muhammad Kareem at November 28, 2006 3:54 AMfor example: pop.mydomain.com
I use XP media center and outlook express. I have my wife as the mail e-mail so when I open outlook express it opens to my wifes e-mail. I then have to switch identities and go to my e-mail account. How can I create a link on my desktop to go directly to mine without have to read her e-mail.She uses this computer more.
Posted by: Frank at January 16, 2007 8:50 PMI have a client that Added their exchange account to their laptop and it removed their email files from their desktop? Does anyone know of a way to get this back or change it to where it works with both being opened a the same time?
Posted by: chad king at October 11, 2007 1:59 PMGreetings,
Posted by: Albert at February 3, 2009 11:28 AMI moved the outlook pst files to a Network Attached Storage device and all instance of Outlook reference these pst files (4 pst files one for each user). The NAS device is available to all 5 computers. There are 4 user accounts setup one on each computer. Setup this way it doesn't matter which computer one logs onto, the mail is the same including calendar, flags etc because the user is accessing the same outlook pst file. The mail is not stored on the POP server, so I don't have to worry about going over my quota, only problem is that a user is not able to open two instances of their e-mail, since there is only one pst file per user account.
outlook web access looks good I will try it thank you alan
Posted by: alan at March 26, 2009 6:00 AMI use web mail myself. My wife uses web2mail to check her mail at work but it is a POP3 so it is a problem if she leaves her home computer with outlook open. Our ISP comcast allows for a setting to keep a copy of all messages on their server even if they have been downloaded to outlook. Another option is Apple's Mobile Me which allows for syncing between computers Mac or Windows to some degree. This has always been one of my favorite Apple products when it was .MAC but lately I have not been impressed with Mobile Me and its $100 a year costs. But I guess Apple has been working the bugs out.
Posted by: John S at May 26, 2009 6:08 PMI set all the "alternate systems" (systems I wish to read & respond to email, but not my "main system" where I file email) to "leave email on server". That way, I can read and respond to email on my laptop (always adding myself as a BCC recipient). But when I go on my "main system" at home, all the emails are still delivered and I can delete or file them as I wish.
Posted by: Jim Sweeney at May 27, 2009 5:41 AMSince most of my trips and use of the laptop are brief, the volume of emails on the server doesn't become a problem.
Ia am using one laptop in the office and et home. I have no problem using Outlook at office, but whem I'm at home my outlook can receive but not send mail. What can i do to fix it? We have pop3 email, why my outlook can not send?
Posted by: Eki at May 27, 2009 8:14 AM