Run Outlook email from 2 computers

[computerdoc]

A customer has his Outlook email on a desktop XP computer. He bought a new Windows 7 laptop. He would like to be able to do his email from either of the computers.

He doesn't need to run both computers on the email simultaneously. He just needs access to the same email.

I know that you can't just use the .pst fail remotely. I've seen that public ShareFolder and SynchPst offer a shared product. Does anyone have any experience with these or something similar?

Switching to IMAP sense to be a major hassle and not worth it.

 

[Kitten Kong]

IMAP is by far the easiest way. I have done this with a number of clients, and the transfer has been painless.

 

[computerdoc]

The description that I saw for the conversion was pretty hairy. It called for deleting all of the emails at some point in the process. If you could point me

How does this work in relation to address books, contacts and calendars?

 

[onetech4all]

Re:

The user can use Outlook for one and Outlook Web Access for the other one. Does the user use POP3 or Exchange? He can use both, just don't check the option to download the emails locally to the computer, in the Outlook Advanced options, but the online HDD space he/she has available, will get full in some time.

 

[TouchToneTommy]

As long as you set both machines to "leave a copy of email on server", and only one to Delete mail from server when deleted from Outlook, they can both run Outlook. You may want to automatically BCC email to yourself to keep track of sent emails. Sort them into their own folder when receiving.

Or, put portable Thunderbird on a flash drive, and move it from machine to machine.

 

[dipper]

As long as you set both machines to "leave a copy of email on server", and only one to Delete mail from server when deleted from Outlook, they can both run Outlook.

This is a good way to do it. Just setup POP accounts on both machines and check this setting on both machines.

 

[lassenpc]

I would lean towards the IMAP; if any concerns, I would make a backup copy of the outlook .pst and archive (and don't forget the NIK file!) first somewhere else.

Dropbox also popped in my head, but I Googled it, and doesn't look like something that's easy to get to work with PST files.

 

[ProTech-MN]

This is a good way to do it. Just setup POP accounts on both machines and check this setting on both machines.

Sent items will be out of sync though if email is sent from both computers.

I would lean towards the IMAP; if any concerns, I would make a backup copy of the outlook .pst and archive (and don't forget the NIK file!) first somewhere else.

IMAP is by far the easiest method to accomplish this.

Dropbox also popped in my head, but I Googled it, and doesn't look like something that's easy to get to work with PST files.

Only potential problem with a service like Dropbox is the size of the PST file could become problematic as it gets larger. I have customers with PST files in excess of 3, 4, even 5 gigabytes.

-Randy

 

[computerdoc]

The user can use Outlook for one and Outlook Web Access for the other one. Does the user use POP3 or Exchange? He can use both, just don't check the option to download the emails locally to the computer, in the Outlook Advanced options, but the online HDD space he/she has available, will get full in some time.

My recollection of Outlook Web is that it was somewhat limited in functionality.

This is a nice solution but it would require learning a new interface which I don't think the user is ready to do.

 

[computerdoc]

As long as you set both machines to "leave a copy of email on server", and only one to Delete mail from server when deleted from Outlook, they can both run Outlook. You may want to automatically BCC email to yourself to keep track of sent emails. Sort them into their own folder when receiving.

Or, put portable Thunderbird on a flash drive, and move it from machine to machine.

How do I save the emails that I want to keep when I have to delete? I guess I could save them to another folder by either a rule which would automatically put it in 2 places or by a manual copy.

I am thinking of going the flash drive route for Outlook.

 

[computerdoc]

I would lean towards the IMAP; if any concerns, I would make a backup copy of the outlook .pst and archive (and don't forget the NIK file!) first somewhere else.

I thought the IMAP doesn't duplicate anything but the email. The contacts, calendar and other PDA items aren't duplicated.

I also saw the process that Microsoft indicated should be done to convert from pop3 to IMAP and it looked non trivial.

Right now I am leaning towards a flash drive based .pst file (with backup!) that the user could take from machine to machine.

If the customer wants to spend some money, the synch products look to be a choice. I'll run the options by him and see what he wants.

 

[callthatgirl]

Get him on hosted exchange, then it should draw down the contacts/calendar and email to both machines. Imap doesn't do calendar/contacts.

If they still want pop3 with calendar, I use google/calendar sync, works ok for my team of 4.

Pop3 is good, but the email craziness with cross pst issues will drive them nuts!

 

[Xander]

Get him setup with a gmail/gApps account and have that account check his regular POP account.

Setup Outlook with IMAP.