Problems using IMAP in Outlook 2013

[ThomasR]

Hi,

We are using Plesk 11.5 servers with CentOS 6 and Courier-IMAP 4.12. Customers are experiencing several problems when using their IMAP mailbox in Outlook 2013:

1. Sending mail over SSL (port 465) will fail if SSL certificate does not match the mail.domain.tld setting. Resolution is provided by http://kb.odin.com/en/116047.
   
   
2. IMAP folders (including INBOX) are not listed. Resolution is provided by http://kb.odin.com/en/121363.
   
   
3. Sent items are not stored (nor online, nor offline). TechNet says that SENT and DELETED folders are no longer configurable by design. The only way to get sent items in a folder is by setting up a custom rule and using Visual Basic (!) to mark the messages as read. Which is much too devious for desktop users of course.

Does someone have a better solution? Parallels, can you please provide a KB article for this? It is inconceivable that 3 workarounds are needed to use Plesk in Outlook 2013.

 

[Sven L.]

Sorry to pee into your coffee... but I have tried Outlook since version 2000 and all versions are absolute rubbish when it comes to IMAP handling. 2013 is not an exception.
Plesk might have it's problems, but the real one to blame here is Microsoft.

It would be better to either configure Outlook with POP3 or use another mail client (Thunderbird works very good with IMAP, give it a try)


Sven L.

 

[ThomasR]

Hi Sven,

We are a hosting company and can not ask our customers not to use Outlook 2013 (internally we do use Thunderbird with IMAP accounts). I know that Plesk might not be the root cause, but at least we can expect some documentation in Parallels' KB for problems with such widely used software. There must be countless users who are affected by these problems.

 

[ScottGoddard]

I don't have an answer for you but a bit of info you may or may not find useful. I use Outlook 2013 with IMAP (Using Plesk 12 now but started on 11) and did not have any problem with the first 2 (although my SSL certificate matches so that should be OK anyway)

The third item was an issue but, in my case, it was quickly resolved by subscribing to all the folders (right click on inbox and select IMAP Folders, hit query, select all and click Subscribe) then making sure the tick box for "When displaying hierarchy in Outlook, show only subscribed folders" is NOT ticked and clicking OK (if ticked I did have missing folders). Since doing that IMAP works fine with all folders (including Sent, Deleted and Drafts) visible and syncing nicely.

I agree Outlook is a bit flaky with IMAP but I have to use Outlook for other things so it made sense to use it for that also.

 

[ThomasR]

The third item was an issue but, in my case, it was quickly resolved by subscribing to all the folders (right click on inbox and select IMAP Folders, hit query, select all and click Subscribe) then making sure the tick box for "When displaying hierarchy in Outlook, show only subscribed folders" is NOT ticked and clicking OK (if ticked I did have missing folders). Since doing that IMAP works fine with all folders (including Sent, Deleted and Drafts) visible and syncing nicely.

I'm afraid this is not working for us (I already checked this solution before and just did a new test on a brand new mailbox). Although the existing content of IMAP folders are syncing, newly sent items aren't stored offline nor online (which is no problem if we use roundcube webmail).

We are using a Dutch/translated version of Outlook, might this be the reason? Please find some relevant settings in the screen shots below:

 

[ThomasR]

One more image:

 

[ScottGoddard]

Sorry, just to clarify a couple of points. If you query the IMAP folders it shows all the available folders? And if you subscribe to all those folders they do not all appear in the folder list (your last image) with or without the 'show only subscribed folders' box ticked?

One final point, on my system, only Inbox and Outbox are shown as top level folders. All the others (Spam, Sent etc) are children of the Inbox. See image:

 

[ThomasR]

Sorry, just to clarify a couple of points. If you query the IMAP folders it shows all the available folders? And if you subscribe to all those folders they do not all appear in the folder list (your last image) with or without the 'show only subscribed folders' box ticked?

Thanks for helping. If we ask for the IMAP folders window, no folders are shown until we click the query button:





But as far as I know this is a normal behaviour. The server folders themselves are all in the left part of the Outlook window.

One final point, on my system, only Inbox and Outbox are shown as top level folders. All the others (Spam, Sent etc) are children of the Inbox. See image:
View attachment 9117

That's right: by default only Inbox and Outbox are shown as top level folders. Following http://kb.odin.com/en/121363 we changed the "Root folder path" in Outlook. I have changed this back to its default setting, but the main problem (sent items are not stored in ANY online/offline folder) remains:

 

[ScottGoddard]

In that case I am out of suggestions. There must be some small difference between your implementation and mine at some level but obviously it could be anywhere and possibly far more fundamental than a setting. At least you know it can work in some circumstances and if you need me to check or test anything else let me know. Sorry I couldn't be of more assistance

Scott

 

[ThomasR]

Hi Scott,

Thanks anyway! After some more testing and debugging I finally found a working method:

1. Sending mail over SSL (port 465) will fail if SSL certificate does not match the mail.domain.tld setting. Resolution is provided by http://kb.odin.com/en/116047.
2. IMAP folders (including INBOX) are not listed. Resolution is provided by http://kb.odin.com/en/121363 (but, importantly: use disabling the "Show only subscribed folders" option by unchecking "When displaying hierarchy in Outlook, show only the subscribed folders.", not the changing "Root folder path" option).
3. Sent items are not stored (nor online, nor offline). You can fix this by creating your own "Sent items" folder ("Verzonden items" in Dutch) within the "Inbox" tree ("Postvak IN" in Dutch). Be sure Outlook is configured to save sent items by default ("FILE" > "Options" > "E-mail" > "Save messages" > "Save copies of messages in the Sent Items folder"). In your webmail you can set the sent items folder to this translated folder, rather than the default "Sent" folder which is created when you sent a message by webmail for the very first time.

I hope this could help others experiencing the same problem. As said before it would be great if Parallels creates a KB article to collect all this information.