Using IMAP Accounts

IMAP is becoming more common on Internet-based e-mail servers because it offers several advantages over POP3. Outlook 2007 support for IMAP means that you can use Outlook 2007 to send and receive messages through IMAP servers as well as through Exchange Server, POP3, and the other mail server types that Outlook 2007 supports.

Note

For more information about IMAP and its differences from POP3, see "IMAP," in Chapter 2.

Configuring an IMAP account is a lot like configuring a POP3 account. The only real difference is that you select IMAP as the account type rather than POP3 when you add the account. You can refer to the preceding section on creating POP3 accounts, "Using Internet POP3 E-Mail Accounts," for a description of the procedure to follow when adding an IMAP account. The one setting you might want to review or change for an IMAP account as opposed to a POP3 account is the root folder path. This setting is located on the Advanced tab of the account’s Internet E-Mail Settings dialog box. Open this dialog box, click More Settings, and then click Advanced. Specify the path to the specific folder in your mailbox folder structure that you want to use as the root for your mailbox. If you aren’t sure what path to enter, leave this option blank to use the default path provided by the account.

Controlling Where Outlook Stores IMAP Messages

When you create an IMAP account in an Outlook 2007 profile, Outlook 2007 doesn’t prompt you to specify the storage location for the IMAP folders. Instead, Outlook 2007 automatically creates a .pst file in which to store the messages. The folder branch for the account appears in Outlook 2007 with the name of the IMAP account as the branch name, as shown in Figure 7-7. Each IMAP account in a profile uses a different .pst file, so all your IMAP accounts are separate from one another and each appears under its own branch in the folders list.

An IMAP account uses its own .pst file and appears as a separate folder branch.

Figure 7-7. An IMAP account uses its own .pst file and appears as a separate folder branch.

How accounts are treated depends on the types of accounts you add to the profile. The following list summarizes the possibilities:

  • IMAP as the first or only account in the profile. Outlook 2007 automatically creates a .pst file to contain the IMAP folder set and a second .pst file (which, for clarity, we’ll call a global .pst file) to contain your other Outlook 2007 data such as contacts and calendar information.

  • Multiple IMAP accounts in the profile. Each IMAP account uses a separate .pst file created by Outlook 2007. Outlook 2007 also adds a separate global .pst file to contain your other Outlook 2007 data.

  • IMAP first, followed by non-IMAP accountsThe non-IMAP accounts default to storing their data in the global .pst that is created when you add the IMAP account. The global .pst is defined as the location where new mail is delivered. You can change the location after you set up the accounts, if you prefer. For example, if you add an Exchange Server account, you’ll probably want to change the profile’s properties to deliver mail to your Exchange Server mailbox instead of to the global .pst file. IMAP mail is unaffected by the setting and is still delivered to the IMAP account’s .pst file.

  • Non-IMAP accounts followed by IMAP accounts. The existing accounts maintain their default store location as defined by the settings in the profile. Added IMAP accounts each receive their own .pst file.

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