BleepingComputer.com: Using The Same Email Acct On Separate Computers

Morning,

The weekend is here and I can finally sit down and ask the questions I've been wanting to ask all week.

I have an AOL account for email etc on my home computer.
A few mths ago I was given a laptop to use. I setup my internet access on my laptop using the same AOL account, password/email address as my home computer (using the same phone line).

If I access my emails on my home computer, save them in my filing cabinet etc. I am unable to access them on my laptop and vice a versa. It just doesn't exist?!

I would have thought (please keep in mind simple thought processes working) that using the same everthing but on a different computer, that I would be able to access all emails?

Does anyone have any idea what I am doing wrong???

PS
I hope I have posted this in the right section. Still fumbling my way through.

Thanks

There are two types of scenarios here.

1) If you are using POP mail with your e-mail client, when you open your client, the messages are downloaded to that specific machine, unless you have configured your e-mail client settings so that the mail stays on the server.

2) If you are using IMAP mail, the mail that is in the folders you subscribe to stay on the server unless you move them to local folders on that specific machine.

For both POP and IMAP mail:

If you move your messages to Local Folders, they are in folders on that specific machine.

Notice in #1, #2 and in the last sentence that I emphasized the specific machine part. This is important. I'm going to create an analogy here.

There was a person, me in fact, who had two physical mail boxes for the same address. One box was small, came with the apartment, and was nailed to the wall. The other one was much larger and sat on a shelf below the box on the wall. The mail carrier was informed to put the mail into the big box. Sometimes the person used the big box to mail stuff also and would put the flag up on that box. The one on the wall had no flag. Everything was fine, until she realized she hadn't gotten any mail for about a week. She discovered what the problem was when she mailed some stuff from the big box and it wasn't picked up. It turns out, there was a substitute who didn't know to use the big box and was using the little box. Lo and behold, a week's worth of mail was in the little box where she hadn't looked. Clearly the mail in the little box could not be retrieved from the big box; they are different containers. The same goes for your computers. Each computer is a different box; you can't see what you have in the one box from inside the other box unless you have networked them together and set up file sharing or something, and I'm not sure you could do that e-mail.

Only if the mail stays on the server can you access the mail from multiple machines.

I hope this clarifies things for you.

Orange Blossom

This post has been edited by Orange Blossom: 24 November 2006 - 07:12 PM

Thanks for that Orange Blossom. I understand what your saying - got some thinking to do!