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IMAP is an important protocol for many of Outlook's customers, and we've heard from many of you that Outlook's IMAP support is not at the level of quality that you expect from a product like Outlook. We heard your feedback, and this release we made a significant investment in IMAP.
Here's what you'll see with IMAP in Outlook 2013:
If you're working in a situation where bandwidth is expensive or otherwise constrained, we recommend using the above new setting to limit the amount of mail you sync to provide the best experience.
However, with all the new improvements we've made to IMAP in Outlook 2013 we were unable to support a few popular features that are used or have been requested by users like you. The two notable features in this list are:
We believe the best experience in Outlook is when you have the entire mail downloaded, and that folks who use Download Headers Only would benefit from our new sync offline setting above.
For categories, while this is the third most common request we hear from you, the IMAP protocol itself does not support categories. As a result, we weren't able to engineer a feature that ensures that categories (including the color and name of the category) you assign on one computer are stored on the server and available on all your other computers, or even available on your same computer if you have to recreate your Outlook profile.
We were able to make these improvements to IMAP because you continue to provide feedback to the Outlook team about how to make your experience better. All your questions and comments are not only appreciated, but used to make decisions about how we can improve Outlook in the future. Please keep it coming!
--Allie Bellew, Outlook Program Manager
Comments: (32) Collapse
Also having IMAP issues with Outlook 2013 - when I delete messages from the Inbox they're not deleting on the server and can still be seen on my webmail and other mail clients...
Also, there's a number of folders where I know there's messages and Outlook downright refuses to download them...
The New IMAP in Outlook 2013 is outright ridiculous! I tried to use it with Gmail and encountered too many problems.
First, for folders with many messages (my Sent folder) cannot be downloaded off-line. Outlook simply stops at a certain message, the "Synchronizing folder..." label and progress bar stays there forever, with not actual progress whatsoever. Restarting Outlook does not help. The only solution is to get messages for the last 6 / 12 / 24 months only. You can't possibly have all your emails offline.
Second, the messages from my Inbox suddenly disappear for no apparent reason. The only way to bring them back was to change the settings of the account and cause Outlook to download them again. Alas, in a couple of ours the messages disappeared completely!
This was the deal-breaker for me, and I reverted to Outlook 2010.
As a side note: downloading messages in fullness takes quite some time for large folders. Further, for no apparent reason it starts from the oldest messages.
Really, guys. I wonder how can you brag about something so outright broken.
I forgot to mention I speak of the RTM version, not the preview one!
Absolutely ridiculous design for IMAP foders... obscure, inconvenient, unclear.
Going to test latest Thunderbird... have had it with outlook!
Seriously, boosting about your new Outlook 2013 that is totally non functional. I am not worried about the two changes you referenced in your article. the fact is Outlook 2013 does not work with IMAP other then Microsoft's.. I have been using my email service (IMAP) with all the flavors of the Office suites, flawlessly, that was until Outlook 2013. at first I thought it was me, but when I googled/binged it, I was shocked that this has been an issue sine the preview and not a work from Microsoft, crickets chirping more like it..
Can the author of this blog at least address this IMAP issue, as it is all forums I have visited have complained about this, yet no one intelligent has responded with anything concrete. the issue is not a heard one to understand since it effect ALL IMAP users. I know that you Microsoft must be aware of this issue and I guess it is your choice to not respond and allow us to continue to grow more distant from your practices. A deaf ear is is not how you should treat your users.. I know my words fall on deaf ears, and I am patient, but I just want you to know this is ridicules and an insult that your lack of responding indicates that we do not matter.. Please fix this IMAP issue.,.
Oh just to reiterate, after upgrading to office 2013, IMAP no longer syncs, it will send, but not receive. It does work beautifully with your live.com accounts.. so it makes me wonder if that was intended by design.! Allie?
How can i disable the automatic "Test Account" when setting up an IMAP account in Outlook 2013. The test email is rejected because of a "date header field" and I cannot proceed beyond this point, because i cannot opt to "Not send a test email".
This statement would really deserve some clarification "Outlook now recognizes special folders in your mailbox like Trash (in techspeak, the IMAP extension XLIST is now supported)". This for me is the biggest annoyance. I haven't been able to configure a single IMAP account with properly assigned special folders. Most of the times even if the folders are already there with the right names, I end up with multiple copies of those folders all marked "(This computer only)". Either support for XLIST on the server side is still not really there or the Outlook 2013 XSLT support is badly messed up. I need the possibility of manually assigning the special folders as in Outlook 2010.
"All your questions and comments are not only appreciated, but used to make decisions about how we can improve Outlook in the future. Please keep it coming!"
But there is NO Microsoft response below that I can see. Hard to tell that they care at all...
Please restore as custom folder for sended and trashed email, not all server as XLIST
Downgraded all client to Outlook 2010
OK... It's hardest but I made thing, that sent message copied to Sent folder. But how can I do this with Deleted messages...
So I have to use Thinderbird 17 instead...
Moving Mails in Outlook 2013 to other folders via IMAP kills the Header of the Mails.
We are using special X-Headers for our Mails (inserted by our Mail-Server), which are processed later by our self-coded Outlook-AddIn when the Mails are viewed.
Works great with Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 as both are not killing the Mails' Header.
You said: "...that Outlook's IMAP support is not at the level of quality that you expect from a product like Outlook"
Seems that the quality got lost if it comes to Mail Headers. PLEASE FIX IT! Thank you!
Another unhappy camper here... Apparently if you have lots of IMAP folders, including a subfolder buried three levels deep but with the word "Sent" in the name - well, that just might become your new default sent items folder.
Also, apparently it would be bad to let us change this, mmmkay? Because letting mere users select their own special IMAP folders - well, that's just crazy talk. I used up my entire allotment of "time I am willing to waste on this product" just figuring out that I can't change this option, and that this is by design.
+1 for the Thunderbird Exodus... Whee!!!
IMAP support in Outlook 2013 is a huge mess, a lot of people are reporting problems (e.g disappearing mails):
social.technet.microsoft.com/.../b7d52f12-ea1c-489c-865d-0fffac470dfa
MS should take an example from the IMAP capabilities of Mozilla Thunderbird, it handles IMAP accounts extremely fast and stable.
I googled XLIST and the second result is from a Google document stating XLIST is proprietary and is being deprecated in favor of LIST, the standard. Seems pretty off-the-wall.
Comments: (loading) Collapse