The Outlook Holy Grail: synchronising email between multiple computers
Outlook is the Swiss Army Knife in the Microsoft Office system. Sure, other Office products might handle bigger or more complicated projects, but when it comes to sorting out email, making sure you remember meetings, deadlines and birthdays, and keeping track of all your contacts, Outlook can’t be beat. For most of us, it’s the essential office survival kit.
Everyone’s work situation will be slightly different – some of us work cocooned in large offices, with IT support a phone-call away, while others might be constantly travelling, working from hotels and airports and downloading email from any available internet connection. Outlook does support both these ways of working, and several variations in between, but the best experience is when it is teamed up with Microsoft Exchange.
If that describes your Outlook set up, then stop here. This article is not for you.
The reality is that the Outlook-Exchange partnership isn’t very common outside of larger businesses, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t want the features available to Exchange users. In particular, you want to be able to synchronise your email with more than one computer (for example, between a desktop and a laptop).
This article aims to help you work out which of the available solutions is most suitable to your circumstances, budget and level of IT patience.
Hosted Microsoft Exchange Mailbox **Best Solution**
There’s no getting away from it: the best way to keep in sync is to run Outlook in conjunction with an Exchange server. Fortunately this is no longer a hugely expensive and arduous task.
Many ISP’s and hosting companies now offer customers the opportunity have a hosted Exchange mailbox for a small monthly fee. This service allows you to centralise all e-mail, calendar, notes, tasks and contacts online and harness the maximum benefits from Outlook. Your Exchange mailbox can be synchronised against multiple computers, allowing you to keep both your desktop and laptop up to date easily. In addition to Outlook, these hosted Exchange mailboxes offer Outlook Web Access (OWA), a web based version of Outlook that can be used from any web browser (handy for when you’re in Birmingham, but your laptop’s on the kitchen table at home).
Check with your ISP or hosting company for the availability of Microsoft Exchange and the size of mailbox support. These services will typically incur either a monthly or annual charge.
Further information about Hosted Exchange Mailboxes can be found at http://www.1and1.co.uk (Microsoft Gold Certified Partner)
IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol)
IMAP provides an alternative to the traditional POP3 mailbox, with most ISP’s and hosting providers offering these alongside POP3. While POP3 downloads your mail to the local machine, IMAP allows mail to be read and managed directly from the server. As a result, mail can be accessed from multiple computers.
As the mail remains on the server, an internet connection is required to manage the mailbox. Your email can still be read offline as long as the mail items have been marked for download, but there is no option to organise mail into folders while offline. Many ISP’s also restrict the size of mailbox allowed, so this option is only suitable for those with a small mailbox. IMAP is an email-only solution, and does not support any of the additional functionality within Outlook – calendar, notes, tasks or contacts.
Check with your ISP or hosting company for the availability of IMAP and the size of mailbox support. This service is normally offered free of charge. Further information about using IMAP within Outlook 2003 can be found at http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/assistance/CH010046021033.aspx
POP3
POP3 has become the most popular method for managing desktop mail and is ideally suited to managing mail on one computer. However, by modifying your account settings, you can elect to leave a copy of the message on the server for a selected period of time. This allows mail items to be downloaded to multiple machines. This option will prove troublesome for most users, as mail which has been already read and dealt with will show as unread when downloaded on another computer. As a result, organising your inbox can become a real headache, especially if dealing with large volumes of mail. It is also worth noting that while this solution allows incoming mail to be downloaded more than once; outgoing messages will only be stored on the machine from which they are sent. As with IMAP, POP3 is an email-only solution, and does not support any of the additional functionality within Outlook – calendar, notes, tasks or contacts.
This service is normally offered free of charge. Further information about using POP3 within Outlook 2003 can be found at http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/assistance/CH010496921033.aspx
MSN Hotmail Plus
MSN Hotmail Plus is an add-on service offered to Hotmail customers. Hotmail Plus customers have the ability to manage their existing Hotmail account using Outlook software. This service works in the same way as IMAP and your mailbox remains on the Hotmail server. However, Hotmail Plus customers now have a large 2GB mailbox and support for attachments of up to 20MB, providing suitable storage for the most demanding of users. At present, this service is only available with a Hotmail e-mail address.
More information can be found at http://join.msn.com/hotmailplus/overview-std. There is an annual charge for this service.
