Sent e-mails also appearing in Inbox - Page 2

Peter_ · 24-02-2011, 12:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Badders

I'm not using webmail at all. I understand how what you say would be useful though. But it's not what's happening for me. I need to find out why Outlook is Sending/Receiving the same account twice. I've checked the Send/Receive groups and there is only one with all the accounts in once. I've exported and then deleted all of my rules and it still happens. Maybe, as Masque suggests, there is some corruption. I'll have another play this weekend. Thanks for all your input.

The only I can emulate this with my own copy is to choose leave in Inbox which it will do unless I then choose Sent Items so if that is not the issue the install may be corrupt as that is the only setting I can find that could potentially do that.

qasdfdsaq · 24-02-2011, 19:07

I've got the same symptoms with my GMail and Outlook 2010 (VM use the GMail platform), every sent mail appears in the Inbox as well with the tag [IMAP/Sent]. It's never really bothered me so I haven't bothered finding out why it's the case but if I do I'll let you know...

Peter_ · 24-02-2011, 19:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

I've got the same symptoms with my GMail and Outlook 2010 (VM use the GMail platform), every sent mail appears in the Inbox as well with the tag [IMAP/Sent]. It's never really bothered me so I haven't bothered finding out why it's the case but if I do I'll let you know...

So it happens with IMAP as well not just POP3 so another puzzler thanks for the input.

I can make it happen and reverse it as previously mentioned and my email address is @blueyonder.co.uk but I doubt that matters.

qasdfdsaq · 24-02-2011, 19:40

Technically it's happening with SMTP - which is used with both POP3 and IMAP.

IMAP and POP3 are both "receiving" protocols, and can only retrieve and manipulate mail from a server, they cannot be used to send mail.

SMTP is required in conjunction with both to actually send mail. Note that sending email isn't the same as putting a copy of an email onto the server, as this can be done with IMAP - I think it's the redundancy in systems that's causing it.

When a client (i.e. Outlook) sends email, it will send the email via SMTP, and then *also* if configured to do so upload a copy of the email via IMAP to a specific folder (e.g. sent items). SMTP doesn't actually have any concept of accounts or mailboxes or folders (it's named Simple mail transfer protocol after all) and can work completely separately from your email account. For example, I can use Google's SMTP server to send email from my work account, and vice versa.

Therefore, you can use a different SMTP server to the IMAP server to send mail, and for that reason some SMTP servers *automatically* take the email as you're sending it and copy it to the sent folder. I think this is what's causing the duplication here.

Peter_ · 24-02-2011, 20:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

Technically it's happening with SMTP - which is used with both POP3 and IMAP.

IMAP and POP3 are both "receiving" protocols, and can only retrieve and manipulate mail from a server, they cannot be used to send mail.

SMTP is required in conjunction with both to actually send mail. Note that sending email isn't the same as putting a copy of an email onto the server, as this can be done with IMAP - I think it's the redundancy in systems that's causing it.

When a client (i.e. Outlook) sends email, it will send the email via SMTP, and then *also* if configured to do so upload a copy of the email via IMAP to a specific folder (e.g. sent items). SMTP doesn't actually have any concept of accounts or mailboxes or folders (it's named Simple mail transfer protocol after all) and can work completely separately from your email account. For example, I can use Google's SMTP server to send email from my work account, and vice versa.

Therefore, you can use a different SMTP server to the IMAP server to send mail, and for that reason some SMTP servers *automatically* take the email as you're sending it and copy it to the sent folder. I think this is what's causing the duplication here.

Admittedly it is an odd one and I have Outlook 2010 and could not find a single reason for it to happen unless I told it to put it in the Inbox rather than the Sent items which was easily reversed, which is why my thoughts went to a corrupt install, what are your thoughts on that.

I would probably just do the same as you and leave it alone as it is no real issue more of a puzzle.

Badders · 25-02-2011, 15:29

Quote:

I would probably just do the same as you and leave it alone as it is no real issue more of a puzzle.

It's an issue for me. I don't want every e-mail I send to be passed around VM and sent back to me. It's not right and I want a fix. Whether it's at my end or VM's end. (Don't start me off on a VM/GoogleMail rant)

Peter_ · 25-02-2011, 16:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Badders

It's an issue for me. I don't want every e-mail I send to be passed around VM and sent back to me. It's not right and I want a fix. Whether it's at my end or VM's end. (Don't start me off on a VM/GoogleMail rant)

I do not believe that it received rather just goes straight to the Inbox rather than the Sent items folder, as I said above I can make mine do that and then stop it by choosing the correct folder as I have explained above but you said it does not work when you tried to do the same.

admars · 25-02-2011, 16:41

Badders, have you tried using webmail to send an email? Just curious if like me with Thunderbird, if you do that, the email appears in your Outlook's inbox.

Badders · 27-02-2011, 12:20

Yes, you're right - two emails get sent - one to the receipient and one to the VM sending address.

These are my settings:

[img]Download Failed (1)[/img]

I thought it might be "Keep Virgin Media Mail's copy in the Inbox"? but setting it to delete still sends two copies

Peter_ · 27-02-2011, 18:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Badders

Yes, you're right - two emails get sent - one to the receipient and one to the VM sending address.

These are my settings:

I thought it might be "Keep Virgin Media Mail's copy in the Inbox"? but setting it to delete still sends two copies

They are the default settings and mine is set to exactly the same and my Outlook 2010 does not do the same action as your account seems to do as mine puts Sent mail in the Sent mail folder.

Webmail does not have any effect on Outlook 2010 whatsoever.

admars · 27-02-2011, 20:21

Quote:

Webmail does not have any effect on Outlook 2010 whatsoever.

Exactly, that's what I was trying to show, i.e. Badders has same issue as me, email client is irrelevent, the problem is not with client.

There seems to be something odd about our actual ntl email accounts when we send mail, but seems unlikely our accounts are only ones effected.

the sent item doesn't appear in the inbox in webmail.

I close thunderbird, used 1 of my ntl webmail addresses to send to another ntl webmail.
as expected, the sending wbemail has everything as it should, i.e. nothing new in inbox, email in sent

in web mail the recipient email, has received the email as expected

open thunderbird, the email is downloaded twice, once from sender, once from recipient. I think it downloads it from the sender as it's a recent, new email in the sender's account, but pop just puts it in inbox, rather than sent where it would go if using imap.

Badders · 28-02-2011, 07:33

Great. I thought I was the only one with this issue. Thanks admars for confirming I wasn't losing my marbles.
Now how to get it fixed...

qasdfdsaq · 01-03-2011, 11:39

I've done a little more investigation and my explanation earlier was pretty much spot on.

With IMAP, when you send an email, your client uploads a copy of the email to the server in the folder you specify - e.g. "Sent items". However, this is NOT the actual sent items folder on Gmail platforms.

IMAP folders work as an overlay on the GMail platform, as it doesn't actually use "Folders" but "Labels" instead. There are actually "System" folders - "Sent Mail", "Drafts", etc. but these need to be accessed differently. If you set your client to just save sent messages in "Sent Items" Gmail will put those messages in the Inbox with the label "IMAP/Sent Items" on it.

You have to set your client to save messages into the actual "Sent Mail" system folder instead, accessed under the [Gmail] subtree:

In short: as the GMail platform remaps IMAP folders to labels, putting a message into any folder other than those under the [Gmail] tree will cause it to end up in the Inbox with the folder name as a label instead.

Mind you if you read Google's instructions on recommended settings they say you shouldn't set your client to save sent messages to the server as it's done automatically by the SMTP server (as I mentioned earlier) but YMMV for Virgin Mail:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/a...y?answer=78892

Badders · 01-03-2011, 12:04

I'm not sending/receiving through IMAP on any of my accounts. All of my accounts have IMAP disabled. It's all POP/SMTP.

I'm not sure whether you're saying it's a hidden consequence of GMAIL's SMTP implementation?

qasdfdsaq · 01-03-2011, 15:01

Well the SMTP implementation will put it in your sent items automatically, I'm not sure how it's ending up in your Inbox via POP3 though, since POP3 doesn't have a mechanism for uploading messages back up to a folder on the server. Does it show up with a label at all in your Inbox?

It's a bit puzzling, but I would still recommend switching to IMAP but that said I don't think the problem's unsolvable with POP3. What account setup have you got for sending mail? i.e. what username, server, etc.