Checking multiple e-mail accounts

[plejon]

I'm using Outlook 2002/XP on WinXP

My company has 3 seperate domainnames registered for different brand names we use.

Customers can get information by sending a mail to [email protected] or [email protected].

When a mail arrives for a particular brand, I want to reply with that brandname in the "reply to" of the e-mail.

To that extend, I created three e-mail acounts in Outlook which connect to the mail server on the corporate LAN. When outlook send/reads mail, it seems to open the three accounts at the same time. This seems to be causing timing problems for the mail server. Sometimes, all three mail accounts will send/receive correctly. Sometimes, one or two will fail to send/receive. In the last case, Outlook reports that it is sending/reading for three accounts, while the mail server sees only two accounts connecting.

I suspect that Outlook tries to connect the three mail account at the same time to the server. Since this is causing a timing problem, is it possible to get outlook to check the three accounts seqientially, starting the connect for account 2 only when account 1 has finished sending/receiving mail ?

 

[SavvyLady]

I have never used Outlook but have it on here ... How did you setup your account. Was in in Outlook or Outlook Express?

 

[plejon]

The full outlook version included in office XP

 

[plejon]

Nothing special in the account setup.

Each individual account works fine. Only when outlook connects the three accounts at the same time do I get an error

 

[SavvyLady]

see in OE you can set them that way or individuals w/ passwords etc....
as if the whole family had accts..

in other words you could set up 1 & then in another log on is 2

 

[plejon]

I see what you mean, but this would not be a very practical solution. I don't want to log in as a different user each time I want to send a mail.

Right now, I have a dropdown triangle next to my Send button that allows me to select which account I will be using to send the mail. (and consequently which reply-address will be displayed to the mail recipient)

Outlook and Outlook Express seem to handle mail differently. On my old Win98 PC with OE, it seems that the three e-mails account are checked sequentially. The second one doesn't start until the first one is finished. The full Outlook XP version on my XP machine seems to check all three accounts at the same time. Sometimes, account number 2 or three finish before account 1 is finished.

 

[SavvyLady]

its just a means to separate accounts... all three could be the same except for the # difference as in your e-mail accts.
But thats in OE Not Outlook...so. back to the drawing board

 

[Brooks]

Supposedly, Outlook 2002 is supposed to check the email accounts in the order which they are listed in the Email Accounts setting in the Tools menu item.

The only thing I can think of is to try increasing the server timeout period in your account settings.

 

[Topazz]

I don't have Outlook but in Outlook Express I have set it to check and send/receive just my main email account instead of all of them each time.

When I want it to check the others I manually choose one at a time from the drop down list in Send/Receive on the toolbar.

Surely Outlook has an option to do this somewhere so that you can manually choose your second and third account to send/receive. After all, Outlook is supposed to be Express with more bells and whistles, isn't it? Have a look anyway.

 

[Brooks]

Is outlook dumping all the emails into the same inbox or is it putting them into different ones?

If they are all different Inboxes, then click on the inbox that you want to get and then press shift + f9. This will check just that one account.

 

[plejon]

1) I already tried the server timeout before, no joy. Problem remains.

2) Outlook does check the account in the correct order, but different then express :

Outlook
- opens account 1 for syncing
- opens account 2 for syncing
- opens account 3 for syncing
- closes 1
- closes 2
- closes 3

Express
- opens account 1 for syncing
- closes 1
- opens account 2 for syncing
- closes 2
- opens account 3 for syncing
- closes 3

this is the essence of the problem. Outlook tries to open account 1, 2 and 3 so fast, that the mail server seems to be unable to handle the seperate requests.

I guess it's back to the drawing board. I'll concentrate on the mail server for the moment. Maybe it has some setting how it handles simultaneous requests. Outlook doesn't seem to offer a solution