Outlook 365 POP putting e-mail into wrong folder

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I just set up my main Outlook e-mail account.  I set up my Contacts and Calendar in a separate PST from the mail.  I also set it to start/open in the Inbox of the e-mail account.

When I opened Outlook however, it started dumping incoming mail into the Inbox of the data PST.

I double-checked and Outlook is set to start up at the Inbox of the e-mail, but it still is continuing even after closing Outlook and restarting.

1) Why is it doing that?
2) How do I “fix” it?

Edit:
1) After poking around in Google…If I set up my Outlook account as a POP, then I shouldn’t / can’t separate my contacts into a separate folder…?

2) I’ll need to import the contacts and calendar into the main POP PST?

3) The Outlook Advanced setting for where Outlook starts up will always be the data file if the account is a POP, so that if the data file is set to the same as the e-mail file all will be fine, otherwise it will open the data file on startup?

Chuck Billow

 

Chuck Billow

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If you go to File | Account Settings | Account Settings where does Outlook say it is delivering messages?

--Joe

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If this is a duplicate response, apologies:

C:\Users\CWBillow\Documents\Outlook Files\Comp – CWBillow POP.pst

That by itself is interesting, since I had set it up initially at

C:\Users\CWBillow\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\COMP-CWBillow-POP.pst.

I have set up my “data” separately for some time in order to save Contacts and such in case of crashes.  But now Outlook wants to put the e-mail somewhere it wants regardless.

 

Chuck Billow

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Wherever it is going, it ain’t coming to me!  I haven’t received an email into either my main account or my GMail account for over two hours, which is unheard of for me.

The accounts test as set up correctly, so I dunno.

Chuck Billow

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Joe, I think the address is storing in TWO places at the same time!

I exited Outlook, and then went to both C:\Users\CWB\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook and C:\Users\CWB\Documents\Outlook Files, and deleted all temp files.  Then I started up Outlook and sent something to one of my addresses.

I showed time stamp changes on both accounts in both places!

Now what am I supposed to do with THAT?

 

Chuck Billow

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Chuck, I always use just one PST file for my Outlook POP—I didn’t even know we could split it like you’re doing.

Perhaps you could consider using just the one PST and doing regular exports of your calendar & contacts—I know that can be done.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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Lugh, I not only didn’t *know* you could do it, I wasn’t trying to and didn’t want to either.

When I opened Outlook this morning though, they BOTH got updated.  Now, aside from the bother of figuring whether there are duplicates or missed items, I still haven’t figured out how to stop the duplication.  I suppose I could “turn off” the account, set it up anew, and, assuming I only end up with one PST, import the other items.

I wish that I knew what caused it, and therefore how to prevent it before I go through that process though.

 

Chuck Billow

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CWBillow wrote:

I still haven’t figured out how to stop the duplication.  I suppose I could “turn off” the account, set it up anew, and, assuming I only end up with one PST, import the other items.

Yes, you could do that.

It might work better to merge one of the current PSTs into the other:
File > Import and Export > Import from another program or file > Outlook data file (.pst) > PST location > …somewhere in that op there is a ‘skip duplicates’ option to tick.

Make a copy of your current PSTs before you start. PSTs are easy to work with—I’ve often done splitting and combining in the past—but there’s always a small corruption danger when everything is in one file.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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I could do that:  merge the two separate PST’s (and pray that it doesn’t dupe all the email!).

Lugh, I don’t know if you recall, but not that far back I was having a bit of a tussle with archiving my PST’s.

I noticed (or recalled since I did know this back when) that, if I am using POP, when that when I download messages from my IPS, it totally clears the email off the server.

That could in fact serve as the “perfect” substitute for arching:  Draw down my mail via a POP account, and then they are all cleared from the server, and yet, since I have the PST, I have ready access to all my past email.

Wouldn’t hat serve the purpose of archiving?

The one thing I don’t know is:  Do I set up BOTH the POP and the IMAP accounts , and then just disable the one or the other as needed?

 

Chuck Billow

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I strongly recommend you pick one method, either POP or IMAP, and stick with it. Figure out what you are really trying to do, read up on what each method provides, and make that work with Outlook. Setup a plan first that includes archiving, possibly splitting data files when needed, how to handle contacts and calendars, backup, etc. Quit shooting in the dark.

Can you use an Exchange based email account?

--Joe

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Joe, sort of working backwards for my answer:

My ISP (Previously 1and1 and now Ionos) suggested an Exchange account for me at one point to alleviate part of my storage issues.  I don’t recall exactly what the issues were, but they were frequent and bothersome enough that I reverted.  Additionally, as I recall the storage was “only” 100 gigs, so it wasn’t the end of the world.  Then Ionos set me up with a 100 gig account, which was fine at the time, and certainly if running a pop account.  With IMAP archiving wasn’t as big an issue, at not immediately.  But, as expected, the need to archive properly returned.

Since I only work from a single machine, I could do so with either POP or IMAP, as far as that goes.  The archiving, though, remains the elephant in the room, however.  In today’s world storage space isn’t a problem, unless it is the amount allocated by the ISP.

If I could get my archiving to run without crashing, be it automatic archiving or manually on a periodic basis, that would be fine.  Then the issue of IMAP or POP wouldn’t be on the table at all.

Incidentally, the one thing I did like, or do like about IMAP is the ability to separate the contacts, calendar etc. from the mail.  Replacing mail after a crash is bothersome.  Replacing contacts or calendar can be a nightmare.

 

 

Chuck Billow

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It is REALYY duplicating!

Chuck

Chuck Billow

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Chuck, I operate 3 POP email accounts—I haven’t used an ISP account in 20 years.

I archive as follows:

At the start of this year I copied my PST & renamed the copy to 2017.PST;
In the live PST I delete everything prior to 1/1/2018;
In the newly created 2017.PST I delete everything from 1/1/2018 forwards.

I end up with a small live PST—holding max 2 years emails—and a bunch of archives eg 2016.PST, 2015.PST etc, each with a year’s email.

It’s a simple manual system which takes little time, and suits me since I very rarely need to access the archives. It would be messy if I needed regular access to archives, loading one, then another… In that case I’d also merge a bunch of the years into a larger PST, eg last 5 years.

CWBillow wrote:

Replacing contacts or calendar can be a nightmare

I recommend regularly exporting contacts to CSV, they’re simple to import after a problem. I don’t know offhand if that works for calendar too as I’ve never used Outlook’s calendar function, but my guess is it does.

CWBillow wrote:

if I am using POP, when that when I download messages from my IPS, it totally clears the email off the server

That’s a choice you make in Outlook, there’s a box to tick re whether or not to leave email on the server. Personally I select to leave on server until I delete from Outlook.

joep517 wrote:

I strongly recommend you pick one method, either POP or IMAP, and stick with it.

Seconded. Using both is accidents waiting to happen, and complete confusion trying to recover from same. Watch/read these and decide:

Excellent clear animated video.

Good How-To Geek article incl Exchange.

Office.com support article

NB: All the above say POP deletes from server when downloading, since that’s the typical default setup. But as I said above, you can change that behavior. You would typically do that if you want to access your email via multiple devices—let one ‘HQ’ device control the deleting while the others are set to leave on server.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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For archiving emails I used to use Lugh’s approach with separate pst files. Couple years ago I switched to MailStoreHome. During installation I choose portable and I can copy between multiple machines. Searches are much,much faster than Outlook. https://www.mailstore.com/en/products/mailstore-home/

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I’m going to check that out.  That, if it works, would be a real solution.

 

Thanks.

Chuck Billow

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cyberSAR mentioned it first. But, you’re welcome, I’m sure!

Image or Clone often! Backup, backup, backup, backup......
- - - - -
Home Built: Windows 10 Home 64-bit, AMD Athlon II X3 435 CPU, 16GB RAM, ASUSTeK M4A89GTD-PRO/USB3 (AM3) motherboard, 512GB SanDisk SSD, 3 TB WD HDD, 1024MB ATI AMD RADEON HD 6450 video, ASUS VE278 (1920x1080) display, ATAPI iHAS224 Optical Drive, integrated Realtek HD Audio

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cyberSAR wrote:

For archiving emails I used to use Lugh’s approach with separate pst files. Couple years ago I switched to MailStoreHome. During installation I choose portable and I can copy between multiple machines. Searches are much,much faster than Outlook. https://www.mailstore.com/en/products/mailstore-home/

I began using MailStore Home several years ago after using various methods to preserve my old emails from several accounts over the years. As a consequence I have emails from as early as 2004 right on up to today. There was one month in all that time when a computer unexpectedly crashed (hardware failure) which resulted in a three-week gap. (Yeah, I’d like to forget that lapse of my backup routine!)
Of course I haven’t archived every email in all those years!

Image or Clone often! Backup, backup, backup, backup......
- - - - -
Home Built: Windows 10 Home 64-bit, AMD Athlon II X3 435 CPU, 16GB RAM, ASUSTeK M4A89GTD-PRO/USB3 (AM3) motherboard, 512GB SanDisk SSD, 3 TB WD HDD, 1024MB ATI AMD RADEON HD 6450 video, ASUS VE278 (1920x1080) display, ATAPI iHAS224 Optical Drive, integrated Realtek HD Audio

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CWBillow

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MailStore seems like a real find!  Thanks RockE!

Chuck Billow

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