[Pepsione1]

Is there anyway you can have outlook to pull emails from a local cache copy on your harddrive while being online at the same time? I haven't figured out how to do that yet so I am always offline browsing my already opened email from the cache *.pst file and doing periodic check for new emails while offline.

 

[flashnolan]

What version of MS Outlook? You mean Outlook not Outlook Express, correct?

Under the File menu go to "Data File Management...". Click "Add..." and choose type .PST. Follow the next few prompts. The file will now appear under Mail Folders.

In my outlook I have an Exchange mailbox, hotmail account, and a file on my HDD for archival purposes.

 

[Pepsione1]

And what's that gonna do to solve my problem? Can I start browsing from my local hard disk copy when I am online?

It's outlook and it's multiple versions on different computers. 97 to xp

 

[Leto Atreides II]

Outlook does this automatically. Once it caches a message, that's the copy it pulls up.

 

[Pepsione1]

No true, not in my case. It always pulls from the server even after it's been read.

It must be a setting I am missing somewhere.

 

[Illah]

Sounds like an odd config error. The PST is the file where local cached mail is stored, so in that sense you're correct, but in most (all?) cases I've seen the PST is essentially all you ever actually 'see'.

In a very broad sense this is what happens when you receive mail:

1 // Outlook starts, loads the PST.

2a // If POP, it downloads new messages and adds them to the PST, and depending on config wipes them off the server. The messages you see are not 'on' the server, you're actually reading from the PST.

2b // If IMAP/Exchange Outlook will sync the PST with the server. Basically the same concept, except that messages can go both ways instead of just down from the server. In many cases, you're still looking at the local PST cache, though some IMAP configs work 'on demand' from the server.

So whether online or offline, in most cases you'd be seeing the PST either way...

--Illah

 

[2deadeyes]

Are you working in an Exchange environment? If so, you'll have to specify that you'd like to work offline. Once you set this, I believe you'll be prompted to setup an OST file which basically is a PST that stores messages when in offline mode.

 

[Pepsione1]

The setup currently is to use the OST file in offline mode. But when you go online it always asks the server for every piece of information making everything slower.

Also it's now complaining the mail account has exceeded its limit and it must be archived. Well that was done many times and didn't seem to reduce the size of the OST file at all. I will make sure the PST is also growing as data is being archived. I don't understand what's happening.