Duplicate Emails

Sometimes Outlook will receive the same email over and over again, or you'll get a whole batch of incoming email twice. This is usually caused by a miscommunication or interuption between Outlook and the incoming email server.

When your computer connects to the incoming email server, it starts retrieving the emails one by one and then, normally, once it's done, it will tell the server that it's received all of them, and the server will go ahead and purge them off the server, making room for new messages. The email messages will be in Outlook on your PC and no longer exist on the server.

If you are having trouble with duplicate emails, first make sure your Outlook settings are correct.

NOTE: This does NOT apply if you also receive emails on a BlackBerry or similar device.

In Outlook 2003 go to:

Tools > Email Accounts > View or Change existing e-mail accounts

Select the e-mail account a press and then

Click on the ADVANCED tab, and make sure the the following check box is not selected:

[ ] Leave a copy of the messages on the server

Save these settings, and then do a and make sure you only get each email once.

If you still have trouble, it may be that Outlook is getting STUCK trying to download a large email. For instance, if there are 5 small email messages on the server and one very large email, Outlook may download the first 5 emails and get stuck (and time out) trying to get the large one. Then later when it tries again, it will download those same 5 small emails all over again.

If Outlook gets stuck trying to download an email message that is too large, you must go and clean out that large email off the server. You will have to go into WebMail and find the large email and delete it from there. Also, remember that email is not designed to send and receive very large files. See more info on email sizes here.