Synching outlook between a desktop and laptop

[DementedReality]

So I used about 5 different email accounts for work and my desktop has all my messages sorted into a functional file tree with all the neccesary rules.

This makes it very easy for me to find files and references and other neccesary business correspondence.

My problem is when I travel. I take my laptop and I lose all this functionality by using a web interface for each account.

I did set up a Thunderbird application and so I can at least get my email all in one place again but all my sent messages while travelling are not available on my PC when I get back.

How do I synch these two systems?

[Rathji]

I will assume you are not using exchange so - set your thunderbird app to not remove email messages from the server.

[DementedReality]

thanks, thats not the issue though. i still get all my inbound messages but all the sent files stay local to the PC it was emailed from, as one example.

[Rathji]

If you are not on Exchange, what type of email access do you have? pop? imap? http?

[photon]

This is why I moved over to Gmail, I was tired of trying to keep different systems in sync and having to mark new emails as read everywhere I went.

So now I forward everything to a single gmail account (and have gmail setup so I can send from it as any of the email addresses I need to), and have all my rules and stuff in one place.

For devices (like my iPhone) I just setup an IMAP client, so anything I do with my mail (delete, mark as read, etc) happens everywhere, and if I send an email it appears in my sent mail folder everywhere.

I used to use Thunderbird as an IMAP client on my desktop, but stopped that and just use the web interface now, but the IMAP stuff worked fine after a bit of tweaking (Gmail has guides on how to setup stuff).

Or if you want to go with Outlook, there are hosted MS Exchange providers out there.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by DementedReality

thanks, thats not the issue though. i still get all my inbound messages but all the sent files stay local to the PC it was emailed from, as one example.

Unfortunately, without your e-mail being hosted on Microsoft Exchange, there's no easy way to accomplish what you're looking for. This sort of functionality requires your mailbox to be centrally hosted and a cached copy placed on each machine (updated when you connect to the server). It's business-level functionality.

You said this is work related - are you self-employed? Do you have employees? If you could justify the cost of running a server with Windows Small Business Server 2011 (and if you would realise the full benefit of having a server), you could get exactly what you want. If you work for someone else, start twisting their arm to upgrade their e-mail system to Exchange instead of using POP mail.

[Shazam]

Just do what Photon did.

Just set up Outlook with IMAP, no need to use Exchange unless you need its groupware features.