Better IMAP in Outlook 2010

My main issues with IMAP in Outlook 2007 and before:

1. When I mark an e-mail as not-junk using the Mark as Not Junk command (ctrl+alt+j), it does not work, i.e. the mail is not moved back into the inbox and it is not deleted from the junk-mail folder.

2. When I send a file by e-mail by clicking the "e-mail this file" from Windows Explorer and use my IMAP account, the mail is placed in the Sent Items folders of the Personal Folders and not in the Sent Items folder of the IMAP account, whilst if I send an e-mail from within Outlook by pressing ctrl+n for example through my IMAP account, it is placed in the correct Sent Items folder (the one for the IMAP account). The same problem occurs when I try to re-send a message, i.e. go to the Sent Items folder of my IMAP, open a message and choose Actouns or More Options and then say Resend this Message. The re-sent message is placed in the Sent Items of the Personal Folders instead of the IMAP.

3. When I delete something it is not placed in the trash folder (Deleted Items) folder of my IMAP. Basically the Deleted Items folder of my IMAP account is always empty. It seems not to do anything, to have no purpose.

4. On my Windows Mobile phone, I get Inbox, Sent, Sent Items, Trash, Deleted Items, Junk and Junk Mail and Drafts for my IMAP account, i.e. there is a duplication of the Junk Mail and Deleted Items folders for no purpose. I guess Outlook on the desktop and on the Windows Phone does not recognize IMAP folders which are used for trash or something similar to what Outlook offer built-in itself.

Still no support for categories or flags when using IMAP. These could easily be implemented using IMAP user-defined flags or keywords. IMAP keywords are designed to annotate messages in an IMAP mailbox, and map perfectly onto Outlook categories. See the IMAP Standards document, RFC 3501 Section 2.3.2. Thunderbird supports their use and has for some time.

i still cannot find my contacts in address book, for whatever reason on install it did not appear and i cannot add a contact to my address book..

IMAP still stinks on Outlook 2010, and will not be worth the upgrade: Cannot select other custom folders - Drafts, Spam, etc. You are locked into Outlook local drafts, local spam, etc. This is BAD!!!! Categories not sync'd to server - bad Also: for local categories no way to change default category after you have selected a category. Now my outlook 2010 is locked into "red category" I cannot select any other category to categorize local messages (and not sync'd to server) Also:

I can't believe you are writing this without a gun to your head. IMAP in outlook 2010 doesn't work! I've been using Outlook 2010 with Gmail for the past month and a half and this is absolutely amazing to see a $400 piece of software that can't deal with something that Thunderbird does without any problems. Outlook can't use special folders, the speed is slow, you can't use IMAP account when offline, and more problems that make IMAP in outlook 2010 just a beta feature. If you had the honor just not to brag about it, it was one thing. But saying that it is better now, is just a sad joke. If any user out there thinks about upgrading for the IMAP support - forget it. go find better alternatives.

Well, this is marketing BS. No wonder people are still pirating Microsoft products. Simplest thing on the World to display (!) a notification about a new e-mail and play a sound, still Outlook 2010 under Win 7 x64 can't solve this huge task for GMAIL IMAP. Hope this is only because of the beta phase but still, you should at least try it before you make an announcement like this. My stupid Sony Ericsson is beeping when i have a new Gmail message so I know when to bring up Outlook. Stone age best practice.

I've just configured my Excange account (my company's e-mail). After the configuration I didn't get neither my contacts nor my calendar. With my gmail account... the same story. Is this a bug in the beta version?

I also have had a bad experience using IAMP with the beta. As previous posters have noted, folders, contacts etc all don't sync. The calendar also still can't link correctly to google calendar url's, which thunderbird has no problems handling.

I hope MS have improved this in the RC of outlook, I don't hold my breath on that though!

I have to disagree with most of the posters on here. I think the IMAP support is MUCH improved. I've even done the "Office Send a Smile" to say as much. Its the first time I've used Outlook with IMAP and not immediately switched over to Thunderbird. That said, please allow users to map their folders to the Outlook version of a folder. For example, Outlook 2010 created its own "Junk E-mail" folder, which duplicates the "Junk" folder on my server. That part isn't so bad, but what is bad is Outlook then scans the Junk mail folder on my server, and moves messages it thinks are junk it into its own "Junk E-mail" folder. So now I have two junk folders I have to review.

What about httpmail improvements on Outlook 2010? I bought Outlook 2007 license some time ago and it proved useless. Had to download Outlook Connector, which for my surprise, does not delete (sincronize) messages on the server. It is a shame a (well) paid product from Microsoft does not work tightly integrated with another product from Microsoft (Hotmail, aka Live Mail) as well.

There is, in my opinion, one big mistake with this deleting. When I setup the folder "Deleted items" for deleted IMAP EMails, it works very well. Until I open the "Deleted items" folder and hit the DEL key or push the "X" in the toolbar, because Outlook move all deleted mails in this folder, even though the mail is in "Deleted Items" already.

I don't think that any user await this. I would await that Outlook delete the mail (with a messagebox "Delete forever?") in this case, and not move it back to the same folder. Only soltution is Ribbon Folders->Clear folders or SHIFT-DEL, but is this understandable for the users? Peter (Yes, there is a bug report in the OL 2010 beta forum)

@mgm,

to make this missing categories more confuse,

Outlook can handle categories for IMAP Mails.

Setup a rule and assign a category, voilá, the IMAP mail have a category. You can open the mail and assign another category or you can add the column category to the view. Peter

+1 for better folder and category support. I never use this feature because only the red flag is available...

What I totally forgot: Please give IMAP accounts the conversation view available with Exchange.

Uh, my bad - used the wrong sorting...