It’s no secret that I’ve had recurring issues using IMAP with Outlook 2007. I would be ready to abandon Outlook entirely but I’ve fallen madly in love with Xobni.
Every few months I try Thunderbird or Outlook Express or Windows Mail. Today I even tried something called Barca. They are all fine but after my most recent fling with Thunderbird, I realize I’m not prepared to give up Xobni. So in a fit of desperation I disabled everything in the Outlook Trust Center except Xobni and Plaxo:
That’s right, I even disabled the Windows Search Email Indexer. You really don’t need it if you’re using Xobni. I also have Skype integration disabled (in the Skype View menu, uncheck “Show Outlook Contacts”).
Furthermore, I adjusted my Send/Receive group to the download complete items including attachments for subscribed folders:
Something I did worked. Outlook now starts faster, and more importantly I have access to my inbox much sooner. And most importantly, Outlook is responsive while retrieving mail (especially during the initial Send/Receive at startup).
YMMV. If you are dissatisfied with the performance of Outlook 2007 with IMAP accounts, please try this out and let me know how it works for you.
Thanks for posting this. I REALLY wasn’t happy with outlook 2007’s speed…tried everything else, but none gave me the contact control i wanted like outlook. Your tips on disabling the add-ins (which id never have used anyway) worked a charm! Since i dont use Xobni, my outlook is MUCH faster to load…MANY THANKS!!
I disabled all add-ins to see how good Outlook can get, and it still isn’t very good. I’m connected to IMAP, have 190K+ of email (not much compared to some other mail readers I’ve used), and it still takes quite some time to load (just the headers!).
I’d appreciate any other suggestions….
@Steve Lipka,
Did you disable the Windows Search Email Indexer add-in? That seems to be the one that kills Outlook IMAP performance for me.
I also sometimes have trouble using Gmail IMAP regardless of my add-in configuration.
Where is the account options you reference in the screenshot. that’s a new for me! drop me a line at carboncow@gmail.com
@shawn, it’s Tools > Send/Receive > Send/Receive Settings > Define Send/Receive Groups. Then click the Edit button.
Thanks. In all my years I’ve never been there before! I believe this alone made big issues with having a full local sync with two of my biggest folders.
How do you “disable” add-ins?
@Steve, click the Go button at the bottom of the Trust Center screen (after you’ve selected Add-Ins).
If you’re running Vista, you might have to do this twice, once with normal permissions and once by running Outlook as Administrator (right-click on the Outlook shortcut and select Run As Administrator).
Thanks – worked brilliantly!
This looks great… but for some reason, it still doesn’t download the message. Each message still only downloads the header. I have to “Mark to Download Message…” to actually download them.
Any suggestion where to look?
I want to add my thanks for this post, Derek. I found it after I asking myself these questions: Why is Outlook so slow? Answer: Windows Search, startup features, and plugins all running at once. Perhaps unarchived items. What alternatives are there to the Windows Search Indexer for Outlook? A: Unsure. Can I keep Outlook and make it run more efficiently? A: Hmm…
Well, you provided just the solution I was trying to put my finger on. Looking forward to disabling these plugins (dare I disable my Skype plugin too?) and trying Xobni. Thank you.
Thank you! I have not been able to find those two panels in Outlook. Also installed Xobni.
Best regards, joakim
Brilliant, made a huge difference just chnaging the download header reference.
Thank you
any suggestions? I keep geeting a message on Outlook, 2007, IMAP server wants to alert mail is not available. I click it, I get mail, but the alert flashes every time I load outlook. Someone says, IMAP file is bad? I removed Outlook, reloaded, same problem. HELP