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Mail

IMAP vs. POP

With the Post Office Protocol (POP) style of e-mail delivery, e-mail is delivered to a central mail server. When you connect to this server using a client application such as Outlook, all your mail is immediately downloaded to your local machine and deleted from the server. All further processing of e-mail, including opening, moving and deleting, is carried out locally on your computer.

With the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), all e-mail remains on the server until you expressly remove it. You access, manipulate, and create mail folders on the server as if they were stored locally on your machine. What you see in your Outlook client represents folders and mail items actually stored on the server.

For users who routinely access their mail from multiple sources -- for example, their computer at work, their computer at home, and a laptop when traveling -- IMAP servers can be more convenient than POP servers. Since e-mail is typically deleted from the POP network server after you download it, those messages will be inaccessible if you sign in again using a different machine. With the IMAP delivery model, your e-mail will still be on the server, allowing you to re-read, edit, and forward messages from any machine.

Oracle Outlook Connector can be used with either IMAP or POP e-mail access. By default, IMAP is assumed, but you can use Microsoft's Internet E-mail information service to configure POP access. For details, see "Using POP instead of IMAP".

Subscribing and unsubscribing from IMAP folders

In order to access messages stored on the IMAP server, you must subscribe to the folders those messages are stored in. Subscribing to a folder displays it in your Outlook Folder List.

To subscribe to IMAP folders:

1. From the Tools menu, select IMAP4 folders.
2. In the pop-up list, select Subscribe/Unsubscribe to choose folders individually, or Show All Folders to automatically subscribe to all available folders.
3. If you selected Subscribe/Unsubscribe, click a folder in the list. If you are currently subscribed to that folder, a button below the list will give you the option to hide that folder. If you are currently not subscribed to that folder, the same button will give you the option to show that folder.

   Folders that you are currently subscribed to have their names written in bold type.

   If you select a folder that has subfolders inside it, the Show/Hide Sub-Tree button will become available, giving you the option to set all subfolders to the same state with a single click.

   If you subscribe to an IMAP folder using a different mail client or a different installation of Oracle Outlook Connector, you will not see that folder in Outlook until you either reset your folder list or show all folders.

To subscribe to public folders:

1. Open your Folder List, and right-click on the top level of the Public Folders tree.
2. Click Properties, and go to the IMAP4 Folders tab.
3. Click a folder in the list. If you are currently subscribed to that folder, a button below the list will give you the option to hide that folder. If you are currently not subscribed to that folder, the same button will give you the option to show that folder.

   Folders that you are currently subscribed to have their names written in bold type.

   If you select a folder that has subfolders inside it, the Show/Hide Sub-Tree button will become available, giving you the option to set all subfolders to the same state with a single click.

Purging deleted messages

If you use multiple mail clients to access the same IMAP server, you can instruct the mail server to clear messages you have deleted in Outlook from the folders displayed in your other mail clients.

To purge deleted messages:

1. From the Tools menu, select IMAP4 folders.
2. In the pop-up list, select Purge Deleted Messages.

Retrying mail delivery

If Oracle Outlook Connector encounters problems delivering e-mail, it will automatically attempt to resend the mail after a short interval. You can set the maximum number of times Oracle Outlook Connector will retry sending your outgoing e-mail.

To set a maximum for delivery attempts:

1. Close Outlook.
2. Click the Windows Start button, and select Settings.
3. Select Control Panel from the pop-up list, and double-click the Mail icon.
4. Select Oracle Outlook Connector and click Properties.
5. On the SMTP tab, click Advanced.
6. In the Retry sending unsent e-mail message every _ minutes box, enter the time interval at which to retry sending the message.

   In the and stop after _ attempts box, enter the maximum number of delivery attempts.

Viewing message source

Oracle Outlook Connector offers the ability to view the complete source for your mail messages, including all Multipart Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) headers. This can be useful for investigating and diagnosing problems.

To view the source for a message:

1. Open the message.
2. From the View menu, select Message Source.