@Jeffberg01 wrote:
can see the Emails on the VM Email website but 50% of the time they are not downloaded into Outlook.
I cannot explain that but I can respond to some of the questions and points that you haver raised but which seem to have been left hanging.
on 11-07-2022 10:57 "Not all Emails being downloaded is not fixed and variable (sometimes can download into Outlook and sometime not). Interesting that the Mail client in Windows can see all the Emails"
The fact that the emails can always be download by MS Mail is strange. However, if MS Mail can download those emails it suggests the problem lies with Outlook rather than something about the emails themselves. All email clients and apps use the same protocols, either POP3 or IMAP, depending on which settings have been entered in the app. If you are using IMAP in all 3 apps/clients it is very unusual for them to be showing different sets of emails in the inbox because the whole purpose of IMAP is to keep the contents of your email folders synchronised across all your devices and your VM Webmail account.
One possibility is that Outlook is downloading the emails but not displaying them in the inbox. That could be down to a filter set in on your Outlook Inbox or to a rule or rules that have been set up in Outlook. A filter might result in the emails not being displayed in your Outlook inbox and rules set in Outlook might result in the emails being moved to a different Outlook folder or even deleted completely.
on 12-07-2022 12:28 "If I leave the header containing it in, it will not be downloaded. I did wonder if VM are looking at specific headers using a blocklist, but I do not know if this is correct."
VM do indeed occasionally block incoming emails that fail their security checks but they block those emails before they reach your VM mailbox. In other words any emails that VM block will not be appearing in your VM webmail account on the VM website so will not be available to be downloaded by an email client such as Outlook.
They do not block specific emails from being downloaded from a VM mailbox by an email client such as Outlook. At its simplest, the only check an email service such as VM makes when Outlook (or any other email client) attempts to retrieve email is to ensure that the credentials, for example, username and password being passed by the email client are valid. If they are not then the email server refuses the connection and no emails will be downloaded.
on 12-07-2022 12:28 "I .......... have set up some filter rules because VM are not capturing them at source and rejecting them. ...... I have stopped them being downloaded and diverted into the Spam folder."
That raises an interesting question. Are you using IMAP of POP3 settings in your various email clients? Or a mixture of both?
It sounds as if you might be using POP3. IMAP synchronises all your email folders including the spam folder so merely diverting these spam emails to your spam folder on the VM website would not stop them being downloaded to Outlook.
POP3 just downloads the contents of your Inbox so anything in your spam folder will not be downloaded.
Using POP3 for the same email account across a number of different devices is not recommended especially with VM emails. In theory POP3 does support multiple devices as you long as you have each POP3 email client set to leave the emails on the server after they have been downloaded.
However, VM have implemented POP3 in a non standard way, see here https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Email/POP3-Behaviour
Once a POP3 email client downloads emails from a VM email account, VM "hides them from the client" and that non standard implementation could have unexpected effects when you have multiple email apps/clients and devices managing your emails. VM themselves do not recommend using POP3 with their accounts.
I used POP3 until quite recently with a VM email account and never had a problem but that was with an email client (Outlook as it happens) on a single device.
I hope that I have clarified rather than further confused the issue. To sum up I would suggest
- check for any filters or rules in Outlook and if there are any disable them temporarily
- if you are using POP3 settings in any or all your devices set up IMAP accounts instead.
Coenoby
I'm a Very Insightful Person, I'm here to share knowledge, I don't work for Virgin Media.
Have I helped? Click Mark as Helpful Answer or use Kudos to say thanks
