Entourage IMAP folder sync issue

hello -

i work in a small company where we have recently switched over from POP to IMAP with a self signed ssl certificate. we all use Entourage 2004 / 2008. there have been a couple of problems with some of the email accounts - all the sent messages are missing from the sent folder, chunks of the inbox mail will randomly move to the deleted items, and some of my colleagues are getting things coming through to their old pop inboxes.

the issues are confined to my us colleagues and boss - my bosses email is picked up by him, myself and one of my us colleagues - so my initial thought was that there was an issue with all of us trying to pick up one set of mail...but this doesnt explain why the other accounts are going haywire...

the solutions ive found, tried and failed with are:

deleting and recreating the accounts from scratch
checking the rules and schedules
refreshing the mail list(s)
repairing the message lists(s)

any help greatly appreciated!

all the best, bet.

I also recently worked on a company-wide switch from POP to IMAP (Entourage 2008) and so far it has been going rather well. That's about 40 or so employees switched over and no real hiccups. There were a couple of things that I put into our procedure that we used that may help you now.

This sounds like some of your colleagues are still receiving their email through POP somehow. One thing in particular that leads me to believe this is that you have messages going from the inbox to the trash, which is the typical behavior for a POP account that is set to delete emails from the server.

When you disable an old POP account, you should also remove the server name from the POP server field in the account settings. This guarantees that the POP account never accesses the account you've switched over, even if someone refreshes the POP account by mistake.

As to the sent messages, you need to make sure you indicate the specific folder you want Entourage to store sent messages in. You can do this in the Edit Account window under the Advanced tab. When you first set up an IMAP account in Entourage, it will attempt to make a Sent Items folder of its own. This could be part of why the sent messages are not showing in the right place. One thing I do to prevent this is to configure the account manually and visit the Advanced tab and uncheck the options to move sent/drafts/junk to specified folders. After the account is created, I go back and check these options and choose the correct folder from the dropdown menu (any previously created folders will show there now).

Another good indicator that Entourage does not have the correct folders set for sent/drafts/trash/junk is that these folders will appear to have normal icons in your folder list on the left. Once the correct folders are set and the server and Entourage agree, Entourage will give the specified folders special icons that match their functions.

I hope this helps! If these suggestions don't solve your problem and you find another solution, let me know.

-Nik