email on 2 computers

thetourist

hi - i have 2 computers in my home, one upstairs and the other downstairs, both running windows xp. I want to be able to get the same email on both. Previously i was using a prog called easy2sync which synced 2 copies of outlook which i had running. i have just gone through a complete remaster of my second pc and i am wondering if there is a better way to do things while i am in this department. With easy2sync i have to sync the mail manually and while it's ok for me, sometimes my wife gets a bit ofput with the "decision screens" which appear from time to time; there are other issues also but in short i want something that works in the background if possible. i suppose i should get a gmail account or something but that doesnt suit me. i thought about using the mail2web site but i have a lot of contacts in my address book and dont want to loose them. If i have to set up a mail server then i will but i am just presuming i am not the only one with this problem and im wondering what other people are up to

thanks

JohnnieM

What I do with my outlook express is I configure it for pop e mail and in the advanced settings tick leave a copy of the message on the server.. make sure you tick to delete it after five days and when its deleted. Plus with outlook express its easy to export and import the address book then you can import it to outlook if need be..

thetourist

JohnnieM wrote:

What I do with my outlook express is I configure it for pop e mail and in the advanced settings tick leave a copy of the message on the server.. make sure you tick to delete it after five days and when its deleted. Plus with outlook express its easy to export and import the address book then you can import it to outlook if need be..

yes i thought of doing that, but i keep nearly ALL of my emails and do sort of clearout's every year or so, how do you manage to archive things etc and how does it work out, do you have to save them to your hard drive ?

JohnnieM

With outlook express.(not outlook) click on tools click on options click on maintenence Click on the store folder..Change the location to a folder in your my documents... ..You'll have to shut down and re start outlook it then copies all your mails to the new folder .. then copy that folder to your new pc and change the "store folder" on it to the new location......

Saruman

Or just copy the store folder itself.. not sure what benefit there is in moving it to my documents and then copying it

By the way, if you burn it to cd to move it make sure you copy it to the other PC then make sure the read only attribute is unticked, otherwise it will not import.

Check with your mail provider also. You could have a forward set up to forward all mail to another email address and have a different address on each PC.

JohnnieM

I said move it as its usually a long path in an obscure location ..(makes it easier.)

thetourist

JohnnieM wrote:

With outlook express.(not outlook) click on tools click on options click on maintenence Click on the store folder..Change the location to a folder in your my documents... ..You'll have to shut down and re start outlook it then copies all your mails to the new folder .. then copy that folder to your new pc and change the "store folder" on it to the new location......

thanks johnnie but i mean how do you manage to just keep old emails (essentially what i meant was "is there any way to keep old emails WITHOUT going to the bother of regularly archiving them manually like you described" )
The way outlook works on my machine currently means that i can sucessfully just leave a mail that i want to keep in my inbox and i can come back to it at any time; if i try the same thing leaving all the mail on the server like you described then it will mean that my email server will prob overrun it's quota, so i assume this is why youre saying to have it delete it after 5 days, but what if it was something you wanted to keep - i suppose you have to manualy save or archive every mail you want to keep - (within 5 days of first opening it).

JohnnieM

Once you download everything to your outlook pop account it'll be there forever..you have to delete it from the server after a few days (or when deleted) to free up space ..the reason you leave it there is for each pop account to pick it up.... Using the method above you can have pop3 configured on two or three pc's plus have all the mail you ever got on all three machines..
Your not just archiving the mails your copying them for the other pc's accounts ..

thetourist

JohnnieM wrote:

Once you download everything to your outlook pop account it'll be there forever..you have to delete it from the server after a few days (or when deleted) to free up space ..the reason you leave it there is for each pop account to pick it up.... Using the method above you can have pop3 configured on two or three pc's plus have all the mail you ever got on all three machines..
Your not just archiving the mails your copying them for the other pc's accounts ..

yes but when you get new mail on one of the machines, don't you have to manually do it all again (the method you described above) to get the new mail to the other machines.

edit: actually i realised that there may be a program out there that does what i want - the program easy2sync was exactly what i wanted except for 2 things - A) it was a seperate application to outlook which makes it awkward means i have an extra program running it was not automatable so syncs had to be done manually - in short it was "in the way".

so what i'm looking for is either an addon to outlook if such a thing exists or else a dedicated email program which will work off a shared store file. any ideas anyone ??

JohnnieM

thetourist wrote:

yes but when you get new mail on one of the machines, don't you have to manually do it all again (the method you described above) to get the new mail to the other machines.

Nope.. Each pc will pick up any new mail..(thats why you leave a copy on the server..):)

kaizersoze

The same problem has been doing my head in for a couple of years so this week I eventually got around to trying to sort it.

I set up a home server using Microsofts new Windows Home Server OS (excellent software btw). I have Outlook 2007 installed on 2 computers. First I backed up the .pst file on the primary pc. and then located it in a shared folder on the server.
Then I deleted the .pst file on the primary pc and started Outlook. You the get an error that the .pst file can't be located and a window opens so you can browse to locate it. Browse to the shared folder on the server and select the .pst file. You then get another error saying the .pst file has been moved and Outlook needs to be restarted. When it restarts it picks up the new location of the .pst file and all your emails are back in Outlook.
Do the same thing on the second pc but don't move it's .pst file to the shared folder, just delete it. When Outlook starts browse to the shared folder and select the same .pst file.
Now both copies of Outlook are sharing the same .pst file and both show email sent/received from either machine and the contacts list.

This should also work with 2 pc's and the .pst file located in a shared folder on one of them.

thetourist

i downloaded a trial of "OSA sync" which seems to be working ok and i will try it out for a while ( it does seem to slow outlook down a bit actually but i think i can live with it )