Download headers and messages for POP3 accounts - Outlook

Home > Products > Outlook > Outlook 2003 Help and How-to > E-mail > Configuring E-mail Accounts > POP3

Warning: You are viewing this page with an unsupported Web browser. This Web site works best with Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or later, Firefox 1.5, or Netscape Navigator 8.0 or later. Learn more about supported browsers.

Email this link

Printer-Friendly Version Bookmark and Share

Download headers and messages for POP3 accounts

Applies to: Microsoft Office Outlook 2003

When working with your POP3 (POP3: A common protocol that is used to retrieve e-mail messages from an Internet e-mail server.) e-mail account (e-mail account: The server name, user name, password, and e-mail address used by Outlook to connect to an e-mail service. You create the e-mail account in Outlook by using information provided by your administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).), you can choose to download message headers (message header: Summary information that you download to your computer to determine whether to download, copy, or delete the entire message from the server. The header includes these fields: Subject, From, Received, Importance, Attachment, and Size.) or complete messages, including attachments. Once a message is downloaded from your e-mail server, the default setting is to delete the message from the e-mail server to free up space in your e-mail account with your Internet service provider (ISP) (ISP: A business that provides access to the Internet for such things as electronic mail, chat rooms, or use of the World Wide Web. Some ISPs are multinational, offering access in many locations, while others are limited to a specific region.).

Downloading headers from your POP3 server can be useful if you receive large e-mail messages and you want to selectively download those items. For example, when traveling with a laptop computer, you may be using a slower connection and not want to download large messages or attachments.

Do one of the following:

Show Download headers

Show Manually download headers

If you have not already added the POP3 account to the Microsoft Outlook profile, add it now.
How?
1. On the Tools menu, click E-mail Accounts.
2. Select Add a new e-mail account, and then click Next.
3. Select POP3, and then click Next.
4. In the appropriate boxes, type the information given to you by your ISP or e-mail administrator.
On the Tools menu, point to Send/Receive, point to the account, and then click Download Inbox Headers.

Show Automatically download headers

If you have not already added the POP3 account to the Outlook profile, add it now.
How?
1. On the Tools menu, click E-mail Accounts.
2. Select Add a new e-mail account, and then click Next.
3. Select POP3, and then click Next.
4. In the appropriate boxes, type the information given to you by your ISP or e-mail administrator.
On the Tools menu, point to Send/Receive, point to Send/Receive Settings, and then click Define Send/Receive Groups.
Under Group Name, select a group that contains your POP3 account.
Note If you have not created any custom Send/Receive groups, select the All Accounts group.
Click Edit.
Under Folder Options, select Download headers only.

Note If you have more than one account in a Send/Receive group, and you want full items for some accounts and headers for others, create another Send/Receive group. In one of the Send/Receive groups, put all of the accounts where you want to download headers only. In the other, place the accounts where you want all items.

Show Download all messages

If you have not already added the POP3 account to the Microsoft Outlook profile, add it now.
How?
1. On the Tools menu, click E-mail Accounts.
2. Select Add a new e-mail account, and then click Next.
3. Select POP3, and then click Next.
4. In the appropriate boxes, type the information given to you by your ISP or e-mail administrator.
By default, when you add a POP3 account, Outlook downloads full items, including attachments, and then deletes the item from the server. If you changed this setting to retrieve headers only, you can switch back to full items.
How?
1. On the Tools menu, point to Send/Receive, point to Send/Receive Settings, and then click Define Send/Receive Groups.
2. Under Group Name, select a group that contains your POP3 account.
  Note If you have not created any custom Send/Receive groups, select the All Accounts group.
3. Click Edit.
4. Under Folder Options, select Download complete item including attachments.
Do one of the following:
Manually get new messages
- On the Tools menu, point to Send/Receive, point to the account, and then click Inbox.
Automatically get new messages
1. On the Tools menu, point to Send/Receive, point to Send/Receive Settings, and then click Define Send/Receive Groups.
2. Under Group Name, select a group that contains your POP3 account, and then under Setting for group name, select the Schedule an automatic send/receive every x minutes check box, and then enter a number between 1 and 1440.
  Note If you have not created any custom Send/Receive groups, select the All Accounts group.
  Your POP3 e-mail server will be checked and new messages downloaded according to the schedule you specified.

Show Download messages from headers

After you have manually or automatically downloaded headers, you can mark items to be downloaded from the e-mail server.

In your Inbox, right-click the header, and then click Mark to Download Message(s) on the shortcut menu (shortcut menu: A menu that shows a list of commands relevant to a particular item. To display a shortcut menu, right-click an item or press SHIFT+F10.).
You can select multiple items by holding down CTRL while clicking the messages.
On the Tools menu, point to Send/Receive, point to the account, and then click Process Marked Headers.

When you download messages, they are deleted from the server; therefore, any other computer or profile you use will not be able to retrieve them from the server.

Note If you move a header to another folder (for example, by moving it manually or as the result of using a rule), and then mark the header, the header won't be processed when you click Process Marked Headers. Only headers in the Inbox are processed.