Outlook freezing with Gmail - IMAP

jap200

I have recently followed the instructions on Gmail to access my emails on Outlook 2003 using IMAP. I chose this over the POP3 option as I had a lot of gmail labels that I wanted to switch to Outlook folders. However I am finding that Outlook is running very slow and is freezing when I click onto a (Gmail) message with large attachments. It takes a few minutes (!!!) to come back to life again.

Also I now have two different in-boxes - one for my btinternet email and the other for the Gmail - it's a real pain.

Would it have been better to use the POP3 option instead?

If so, can I change to that now?

If so, what will happen to all the Gmail messages now in Outlook?

Any techie help to this relative non-techie would be much appreciated.

tronator

jap200 wrote: »

I have recently followed the instructions on Gmail to access my emails on Outlook 2003 using IMAP. I chose this over the POP3 option as I had a lot of gmail labels that I wanted to switch to Outlook folders. However I am finding that Outlook is running very slow and is freezing when I click onto a (Gmail) message with large attachments. It takes a few minutes (!!!) to come back to life again.

I'm not using Outlook, but there might be an option to download messages for offline use. I know Thunderbird has this option. If the messages are not available offline then Outlook downloads them the moment you click on them. If the email has a large attachment then it might take a while dependent on your Internet speed.

Have a look at Thunderbird. It handles IMAP much better than Outlook, at least in the past.

jap200 wrote: »

Also I now have two different in-boxes - one for my btinternet email and the other for the Gmail - it's a real pain.

What's wrong with that? It's quite usefull. If you're in the inbox of account 1 and you compose a new email then it uses the email address of account 1, if you're in the inbox of account 2, then it uses the email address 2.

Again, give Thunderbird a try. There you can have o global inbox.

jap200 wrote: »

Would it have been better to use the POP3 option instead?

A big NO. IMAP is the way to go.

jap200

tronator wrote: »

I'm not using Outlook, but there might be an option to download messages for offline use. I know Thunderbird has this option. If the messages are not available offline then Outlook downloads them the moment you click on them. If the email has a large attachment then it might take a while dependent on your Internet speed.

Yes I do have a poor internet speed (sadly its the best available in my village location), so that might be the problem.

Anyone know if Outlook has the 'download messages' option? If so, where I can find it?

tronator

jap200 wrote: »

Yes I do have a poor internet speed (sadly its the best available in my village location), so that might be the problem.

Another idea, you could try out Zimbra Desktop. It doesn't only support the Zimbra email server, but also any IMAP or POP3 account and has full GMail and Yahoo support including contacts and calendar. It has a separate folder structure for each account and a "All Mailboxes" folder too.

jap200 wrote: »

Anyone know if Outlook has the 'download messages' option? If so, where I can find it?

http://www.labnol.org/software/tutorials/solutions-for-slow-gmail-imap-with-microsoft-outlook/1761/

jap200

tronator - Thanks for these suggestions. I will certainly take a look at Zimbra and/or Thunderbird when I have more time. Right now I am battling a heavy (freelance) workload and shouldn't have started messing about with my email in the first place!