What's the Purpose of "Syncing" Mail with Outlook and iPhone?

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Level 1

5 points

What's the Purpose of "Syncing" Mail with Outlook and iPhone?

Hello All,

I have tried to figure out, what the purpose of syncing my mail with my outlook is to my iPhone is. I sync my iPhone like normal for everything else (which works fine), it says its syncing mail, yet messages I have recieved on Outlook don't seem to copy to my iPhone. I can only recieve messages to my iPhone via Edge or Wi-Fi. The worst part is, every mail message including the ones I send from both my Outlook and iPhone, arrive in my inbox as messages to myself that I have to manually file in the Outbox one at a time. In addition, I doubt it is syncing sent mail from my iPhone and putting a copy in my outlook. So, is there a point to syncing mail accounts or am I just doing something wrong? Thanks for any help anyone might be able to give!

Dell Inspiron 9300, Windows XP, Media Center 2005

Posted on Sep 12, 2007 9:14 AM

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Answer 1

Nathan C

Level 5

6,266 points

Sep 12, 2007 9:23 AM in response to Train448

Train448,

As discussed in the knowledge base and the User's Guide, you can sync email settings to the iPhone.

This article discusses this:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305741

If you are using IMAP or an Exchange server that has IMAP available, messages on the server will be downloaded to the iPhone.

However, if you are using POP3 the default in Outlook is to remove messages from the POP3 server immediately in many cases, and those messages won't be available for the iPhone to download from the server.

Hope this helps,

Nathan C.

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Answer 2

Sep 12, 2007 9:29 AM in response to Train448

The syncing of mail with outlook is to transfer email account settings for a chosen account or accounts to the iPhone only so the account or accounts don't need to be manually created on the iPhone. This is in one direction only - from your computer to the iPhone and does not sync or transfer messages from your computer to the iPhone.

Syncing address book contacts and calendar events is bi-directional with the iPhone.

Are you accessing a Gmail account with Outlook and the iPhone?

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Answer 3

Train448 Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 12, 2007 10:38 PM in response to Allan Sampson

Yea, I use Outlook and iPhone to view mail. On my windows mobile device, it would sync the messages, not just the settings. Are you saying that iPhone won't do that?

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Answer 4

Sep 13, 2007 4:34 AM in response to Train448

Yea, I use Outlook and iPhone to view mail.

With what TYPE of account - POP, IMAP or Exchange?

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Answer 5

Sep 13, 2007 8:21 AM in response to Train448

POP is one way only...what you do on iPhone stays on iPhone and does not transfer to outlook.

If you IMAP your account, what you do on one will transfer to all others, iPhone, outlook and email account. I now use IMAP to accomplish all of this instead of dealing with your given situation.

If its an exchange account then it basically works the same as a POP account.

I highly recommend that you IMAP it...it works great with MSN related email and an izymail.com account.

Good Luck

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Answer 6

Train448 Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 14, 2007 5:04 PM in response to Train448

Well that is incredibly lame. They need to get that system to either bi-directionally sync with outlook on a POP account, or something. I really don't want to change e-mail addresses if I can help it. Oh well. Thanks guys! I will just have to live with it!

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Answer 7

Sep 14, 2007 11:21 PM in response to Train448

Not going to happen - there are no devices that sync POP accounts or local mailboxes.

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Answer 8

momerade

Level 1

5 points

Nov 28, 2007 6:38 AM in response to Train448

Many mail account allow you to either use pop or imap while keeping the same email address, it is just a configuration setup.
Check out your email prefrences and outlook configuration section/tutorial. The answer might just be in there.

Pierre

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