Outlook multiple inboxes

Hi,
This is going to be difficult to explain, so please bear with me. This time last year I built a new computer and purchased Office 2013, I think 365…not sure. When I first set up my Outlook account, one of the first things I did was setting my .edu school email to forward to my outlook account, so those emails would show up on my computer when I opened Outlook and when it ask what folder I selected inbox. Since then those emails have been forwarded, as desired to inbox. I also sent emails to people informing them of my new @outlook.com email addy. Only one of those person’s emails always go to inbox. The rest go to a separate folder “…@outlook.com” (my email address) also emails from other places like Amazon, or even if I send myself an email go to that folder.

When I setup my outlook.com email on my iphone it was listed as Exchange and I only received the forwarded .edu emails and that one other person's emails on my phone, on my home computer I receive all emails, but in two separate folders as previously mentioned. I just bought an HTC One Windows phone and it is doing the same thing as the iphone, only the .edu forwards and that one person's emails are showing upon the phone and I don't get the rest until I get home and fire up my home computer. Is there a way to merge these so all of the emails sent to my …@outlook.com addy show up on my phone?

Thanks!!
DD

Although there are various ways to set up accounts to achieve what you are aiming for the first thing to ensure is that your Outlook.Com account is set up as a webmail account, rather than an exchange account, which is designed for use of a local exchange server .

I actually use a gmail account as my catchall account, running over IMAP not POP3 - I find that this has very usable filters that allow me to get everything in the place it needs to be, from multiple other accounts, including an outlook account, using the sever based tools - My Android phone then automatically replicates the contents of my gMail account.

Setting up of an outlook account, as a catchall in the same way should be possible, but would be slightly less automatic

One thing I would check to make sure the source for things are correct (outlook can use different folders for other emails coming to it)

Check on the outlook.com website in your web browser, which folders are the emails showing in here?

as above outlook does work the same as gmail for this, but as default I think it bypasses inbox for other email accounts, it's a while since I set mine up, but it is possible to set it up so all goes into inbox

is the outlook account the one you signed into your phone with, or is this account just added for email?

The defaults for the way that outlook 2013 handles multiple accounts has changed from that used in Outlook 2007. 2013 defaults to the multiple folder model for accounts whereas 2007 defaults to the single folder model, It's possible to merge POP3 accounts using options for the store locations in the individual account settings and then removing the PO3 accounts from outlook and merging the .PST files, but this is a complex solution that really needs a few macros written to perform the transfer, Exchange accounts and IMAP complicate the matter further.

Getting the phone to use a single inbox etc is another matter and depends strongly on which accounts are involved and which apps and OS version the phone runs on.

The complexity of syncing email accounts in Outlook and to an Android phone, (and tablet device), has led me to drop offline (outlook), solutions for my personal needs - I have a good net connection on both fibre and mobile signals, (Both always on and unlimited), so it's more efficient to work completely online.

I would strongly advise anyone who needs access to multiple accounts from multiple devices to seriously consider the advantages of IMAP over POP3, as most of the synchronisation is inbuilt into the IMAP protocol. If you are going to use an offline solution such as Outlook you really need to perform the merging of multiple accounts at the server rather than wait until the data is in Outlook, this means that the phone will access the same online data as outlook and thus present the same data to the user.

Barman58 said:

If you are going to use an offline solution such as Outlook you really need to perform the merging of multiple accounts at the server rather than wait until the data is in Outlook, this means that the phone will access the same online data as outlook and thus present the same data to the user.

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I agree on this, this is why I was asking what it looks like on the outlook.com website

It sounds like a rule of some sort on there that is doing it

or am I reading the op wrongly

to me it is reading as the .edu account is set to forward to outlook.com (these emails are on the phone so it must be forwarding to it)
emails to the @outlook.com address are not showing up on the phone (except one), this sounds like some type of rule

The default for outlook 2013 seems to be Exchange ActiveSync(for outlook accounts), this is what I use and it syncs perfectly with the web and windows phone

I think you are reading it correctly - What seems to happen on outlook com accounts is that the system retains the data for the originating account and places these into separate folders (pst files? ), but it seems the phone and desktop client software do this in different ways which leads to confusion

I suggest the way I do it at the server as this works independently of the device involved - you simply collect the mail on any device using the basic mail app and as long as you use IMAP any changes on one device is virtually instant on all others. In a practical way I often check mail on my pc when I receive the audio notification on the phone, rather than the visual notification on the pc

Have not done any Exchange server stuff for a while but when I did, all the multiple account work was performed on the server to simplify the work done on the local devices.

Not sure what facilities are available to the end user on the Web based Outlook.com but assuming that the basic Account collection system works in a standard way any number of devices should see the same data using activesync as I do useing Imap on gmail.

Just been looking at my outlook (gmail and outlook accounts) and it seems to work as you say for these nowadays

for internet based accounts the default is now a .ost file, which is a synced version of exactly what is on the server, unlike .pst which is more of an offline version

so if I go and change something in gmail or outlook this change is automatically updated on the server

This works the same way as IMAP does, the main source for emails is the server and any changes to folders or mail status updates immediately onto the server

so if I add a new folder using another client or the web app, outlook 2013 will automatically see this new folder, same with read status and anything else I do

the .ost to me just looks like a cache and not the main storage for emails as in .pst

its been quite a while since I looked into the working of the outlook program, but it now seems to use the server as the main source for your data instead of the main source being stored locally

It's strange, I started in this business many years ago - when everything was stored on the server, (the mainframe), and accessed from devices, (the terminals),

In the nineties, especially with the increase in laptop use, the data was stored locally on intelligent devices, the Peer to Peer systems, such as the windows workgroup system, with the traditional server used for backup copies of the live data stored locally.

Today in this connected world, logic dictates that we return to the old ways

In all honesty, for data needing to be accessed on multiple devices, the old client server system is the only way to go. It relies on a good connection to the server and/or reliable cache systems to ensure adequate usability when offline but it does reduce overall data processing. In this example with email on two devices the alternatives are processing the merging of multiple accounts once in the usually more powerful server, or twice, in Outlook on the PC and the Phone, with the difficulty of synchronizing the processing on both devices to present the same data to the user.

Outlook has always tried to walk the line to service both methods - Client Server for larger business customers, who use dedicated exchange email servers, and the Peer to peer for small business and home users, who rely on webmail sources. This will always be a compromise as there is the need for backwards compatibility which means that often Outlook sees modern webmail as exchange servers and the server management to follow the expected standards. It's also interesting to see that outlook on Mac is much more in-tune with modern web systems - mostly because it was designed recently with no attempt at backwards compatibility