outlook for mac keeps downloading old emails

If there is only one copy of each email message in your inbox, and yet you are receiving multiple copies, it means that your email client (viz.

Below are the most common causes of this issue and how you can resolve it.

The mail server does not remember which message you downloaded.

This is the reason why you can download same messages at the office, leave them on the server and download them again at home in your home computer.

If the server remembered which messages had been downloaded, then they would not download again to another machine.

Next time when it checks for new messages, it gets a list of all the message IDs on the server, compares it to the list or message IDs it has already recorded as been downloaded, and requests only those messages that have not yet been downloaded.

If the list of downloaded message IDs becomes corrupted, which is common especially when that list gets long, Outlook loses track and starts downloading all messages over and over again.

I suggest you only leave messages on the server for 10 or 15 days, depending on your mail usage.

However, if you still wish to leave a copy of all messages on the server, then it is advisable to connect from your outlook via IMAP and not POP3.

Often, what happens is that an email message gets stuck during the download process.

This causes your sendreceive session to terminate without updating the local list of received messages, or without deleting received messages from the server (if outlook was set to delete messages on the server after downloading.

Then start moving messages back to your inbox one or a few at a time, and downloading them to Outlook until you find the message causing the problem.

You can either move the problem messages to a folder other than inbox or delete them permanently.

The most recommended time gap between two subsequent checks is 15 mintues.

Checking more frequently, i.e.

When this happens, the index file of the e-mail client will no longer be synchronized with the email server, resulting in multiple copies of the same message.

You can manually force a check if needed, but be sure the last check has completely finished.

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Outlook For Mac Keeps Downloading Old Emails