Mail box on mac

Question

Have set up a new mail box which was running through outlook express on my old windows machine.
Although it is showing there and I am receiving some mail, not all of it is appearing in my inbox on my imac. I know this as, as a double check before I get rid of my old windows machine, I was checking the old outlook express box. All the ones that show up on my imac are on my old windows but there are ones on the old windows not on my imac?
Any ideas.

Answer 1

blackheath wrote:
It is new mail that is a problem. Understand what you've said re server. If it deleted from server would it mean that it still shows in my o.e. mailbox then? Assume that would mean that I would l have to delete my outlook express mail box altogether or change settings so it didn't delete. Will not be using it when sure this is working properly anyway so not fussed if it is gone.
Let's just clarify a bit (and I hope I not saying what you already know, but bear with me).
Mail programs like OE and Apple Mail retrieve mail from a mail server. Common practice is for the mail program on your computer to retrieve mail from the server onto your local computer and then delete the mail from the server. However, if you want to have two programs retrieve mail (in your case both OE and Apple Mail), then you need to make sure whatever mail program gets to the server first after mail arrives there leaves the mail on the server so that it's still there when the second mail program checks for mail.
Mail programs like OE and Apple Mail can be set up to retrieve mail according to some prescribed interval (every minute, every hour, etc.) and there's no telling, when you have two separate programs doing this, which will get there first after new mail arrives on the server.
So, what I'm saying is that (from your description) it appears that when Apple Mail gets there first (after mail has arrived on the mail server) it retrieves the mail and leaves it on the server, so then OE also is able to retrieve it when it does its next check for mail.
Conversely, it appears OE deletes the mail immediately upon retrieving it when it gets there first, so when Apple Mail comes along later to check, there is no mail there for it to retrieve.
These parameters (how frequently a program checks for mail, when it deletes the mail from the server, etc., etc.) are set up under Mail>Preferences in Apple Mail. I assume OE is similar. I hope this isn't too confusing - ask questions if you need clarification.