Microsoft Outlook 2010 & IMAP

For many years, I have been using Incredimail as my email application. This was long before they brought in Windows Live Application and Outlook was not attractive. Incredimail was filled with many bugs. Duplicate emails being retrieved was one of my major issues in the beginning. But they had a lifetime purchase (including all future updates) which wasn’t much so I went for it since it was cheaper than Office. Later on the application stabalized and duplicate email was fixed. But a few other minor issues such as using the premier skin or certain notifier didn’t work. The backup facility also didn’t work in some versions.

When I thought of switching to another email client in 2007 (after Outlook became better), I realized that the email format of Incredimail was very different from all other email clients and therefore cannot be imported. So I either abandon all my saved emails or stay with Incredimail. Since the bugs were minor, i decided to stick with Incredimail and avoid the hassle.

However, since last version update of Incredimail, duplicate email issue is back again. This is now trying to download emails of ALL the accounts I have. That is a lot of emails and I didn’t want to hassle with it again. It was time for me to switch to Microsoft Outlook 2010.

By this time, all my emails are in Gmail. So I simply connected the IMAP to Outlook and started using it. What I didn’t realize was that Outlook has a preset location for IMAP that cannot be customized. I have configured my computer to have only OS in “C:“ drive and all the files in “D:“ drive. Outlook had put the IMAP’s PST files into “C:“ drive and it didn’t allow me to move it. This became a problem for me. Kept googling for solutions until I came across a question/answer site that contained the solution for me (you can find it here).

I had to implement the fix in the registry and still the PST location was in the default folder. I had to delete the email accounts and create a new one and that used the new registry entry location and put the PST files in that location.

These are the steps to follow to reconfigure the default folder directory for IMAP PST files.

Note: Make sure you backup your registry before you edit it. And it is always best to do this BEFORE you configure the IMAP. Would save some time having to redo it.

1. Close Outlook.
2. Create a folder where you want to put the IMAP datafile.
3. Copy the PST file with the name of your IMAP profile from C:\Users[Username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook to the desired location (eg the new created folder).
4. Afterwards, Click Start / Run and type “Regedit” (You’ll need administrator rights for this).
5. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook
6. Add a REG_EXPAND_SZ (Expandable String Value) with the name: ForcePSTPath
7. Fill in your new folder path as value.
8. Start Outlook.

This would work great. Now I’m trying to find a solution to import all my old Incredimail emails. Only solution I found is an expensive one (would cost £40 for the app with 1yr license even though I’ll be using it only once).

Atleast I’m moving away from Incredimail. What a big relief that is.