How about Hotmail instead of Windows Live Mail?

[RobG]

Greetings,

I use Windows Live Mail as my PC-based Mail client. I run about 10 email accounts. For a couple of months now, I have noticed the Windows Live Mail (WLM) is messing with my stored mail. By that I mean: I have created about 50 folders under the Storage Folders area. Every now and then emails that I know were stored in a particular folder disappear and totally unrelated emails are in my storage folders instead. I can't say if it's a 1 for exchange of emails. Sometimes I can find them in the Quick Views (shows emails from all Accounts), but sometimes not (because, I presume, they are in the bulk of emails that I eventually delete en masse due to age). It might also be because, while I know I saved an email with certain information, I don't recall enough specifics to be able to locate it.

So, I am fed up with Storage Folders that don't store properly and am thinking about making a change. I am thinking about Hotmail instead of WLM. I am attracted by the unlimited storage space, thinking (perhaps erroneously) that a system designed to handle unlimited storage might do a better job of maintaining the Storage Folders. I am nervous about my emails being in the cloud instead of on my PC, but I guess I need to evolve sooner or later. I am assuming Hotmail will support all my other email accounts (POP3s, gmail, live.com). I fear the unknown. I don't know what I should ask about whiching to Hotmail, so I'll keep this generic: Does anyone here have an opinion they would like to share regarding moving from WLM to Hotmail?

TIA

Rob G.

[Roderunner]

Hi Rob,
As you have many mail accounts, all of which if accessible in WLM would be better if you backed-up each ones inbox & sent items. Export & Import Messages in WLM.pdf

[CLiNT]

I use both Hotmail and WLM with an extensive storage folder and subfolder complex associated only with the WLM client.
Although I don't have anywhere near 10 email accounts I've never seen the type of behavior Rob describes.
Maybe a total rebuild of the storage folder area from the ground up would resolve the issue??

[RobG]

Clint, thank you for your relpy. You and Roderunnner have given me more to think about. Does your having storage folder structures under WLM indicate that you perfer WLM over Hotmail or that Hotmail is in some way not robust enough or user-friendly enough? Your idea of a total rebuild might be worth a try. I attempted some exporting of my Storage Folders (as Roderunner suggested) only to be stopped by errors (generic type... unable to export due to errors, maybe space limitations or corrupted files). WLM provides a 'clean up' utility as a maintenance option (seems to re-write emails to release freedup space, presumably following a deleting of a bunch of files). I have used this utility a number of times. Doing so certainly has not prevented the screwing around with emails in my Storage Folders. Another wonky behavior is that often, on the initial Move to, create new folder, ok (move to new folder), sequence; the 'Move to' does not work. I often want to save a 2-email sequence in which I create the new folder as part of moving of the first email (while in the email view) and then I do a normal 'Move to' for the second email. I Must now switch to the folder view to check whether or not either message actually moved to the new storage folder because there's a 50/50 chance neither email is really in the folder I just moved them to. I now have to find them in my inbox and move them with a select and drag and drop sequence from the folder view. Usually, once I have 'stabilized' the folder by doing this, future 'move to's will work. All seems good until that time comes that I want to go back to the original email of the series I have been saving, only to find that the folder is either empty or has a couple of totally unrelated emails in it (problem described in the original post).
If I describe your suggestion of a total rebuild of my WLM accounts and folders as, rebuilding to put myself in the same position of repeating my 'move to' sequences using the same software, but hoping for different results; well, you can see why I am thinking about Hotmail. Perhaps I should think about Gmail instead???...

[CLiNT]

Clint, thank you for your relpy. You and Roderunnner have given me more to think about. Does your having storage folder structures under WLM indicate that you perfer WLM over Hotmail or that Hotmail is in some way not robust enough or user-friendly enough?

Yes, I prefer to have all my email content on my hard drive where I have 100% control of it. I use the Hotmail account merely as a means of accessing email. I hardly ever visit the actual Hotmail website and will only keep a small amount of content in a limited number of folders there. Every email I get will be sorted from within WLM as they come in, "copied to" or "moved to" other folders based on type, who the email is coming from, and other catagories/criteria.

I did a total rebiuld of my storage folders a few years back. Mainly because I wanted to add more folders and catagories, change names, shorten names that were too long and got trunicated, and just to generaly clean things up a bit. But I didn't rely on the import/export function for this. Everything was way too disorganized and confused to rely on the import/export function at first.

The first thing I did was to make a physical backup of the storage folder in it's entirety, then I completely uninstalled and removed the WLM client. (I'll reinstall the WLM client later when I finally get my storage folders organized).

What I did next was create a side by side comparison of all of my individual storage folders from within windows explorer of each of the old folders, and then all the new ones I wanted to move to. I then physically copied all the email contents of each of the old folders to the new ones of my choosing, based on the catagories I had chosen.

Once I had the basic folder structure down with all the emails in their respective places, I then reinstalled the client and set up the basic Hotmail account.
(I should note that I never keep my storage folder in the default WLM location. It has always resided on another secure internal hard drive in a master folder with subordinate master alternate folders, active use folders, and empty an folder as well).

Empty folder
You absolutely need an empty folder when you first go to move the WLM client's store folder from it's default location.
Once I had the storage folder defaulted to the new location I went about importing all of the newly created folders from within the client.
But you would have to have an EMPTY, newly named folder to relocate to. Then you can begin the process of importation from the new folders you created in windows explorer.
I hope this makes some sense.
Untitled.jpg
Master folders look like this
Subordinates are too numerous to list

Having 10 email accounts may complicate things considerably, something for which I have little experience with.

I hope this helps in some way.

[elikam]

Actually you can have your cake and eat it too, as they say. I use Thunderbird with Hotmail and and a local E-mail client which both work under Thunderbird. Thunderbird makes it possible to store your mail in local folders on your own hard drive whether the mail is Hotmail or some other E-mail client. My only reservation is that Thunderbird requires more key strokes to store in the local folders than should be necessary, but that is a minor fault. You can send E-mail from any of the E-mail clients and indicate to which client you want a reply to go to. The arrangement is not perfect but it is about the best I could find for my perhaps idiosyncratic preferences.

[Peterboroughron]

I finally gave up on WLM and moved to Gmail over a year ago. Been a happy camper since. I have 5 email accounts, 2 MS Outlook & 3 Gmail. All work perfectly and I experience none of the issues I had with WLM, especially the password not working being a frequent occurrance.
Fanleaf

[BillWilson]

I use FastMail.fm instead of Hotmail or Gmail and I use Thunderbird on my PC where all my messages are stored and this setup works great. I've been especially impressed with FastMail because the guys who created it and run it are very open with info. There is a status blog on a different server that is constantly kept up to date and there is a support forum where difficult questions are frequently answered by those same two guys! FastMail has a huge amount of capability for more than just email if you have an inclination to do more. And, they have a huge number of domain names that can be used for creating email aliases.

I worry about Hotmail and Gmail accounts being scanned for information and I'm certain that that does not happen on FastMail.

Bill