Headers Only option?

  • Thread starter Thread starter megan
  • Start date Start date
M

megan

In OE6 you can select to only download headers from
specific folders. How do you do this in Outlook 2002??
 
It's a "bit" more hidden than in Oulook Express

Goto Tools-> Send/Receive-> "AccountName" Only-> Download Inbox Headers.

To set this as default goto Tools-> Options-> tab Mail Setup-> button
Send/Receive...-> select the GroupName-> button Edit-> Download Headers Only

Good Luck!
 
megan said:
Hi,
Thanks for the info....I did the default setting..but my
next junk mail that came in showed the full HTML
message...I keep hearing about this "mark as read"
thing..Is that why?I can't figure out how not to have
that folder 'marked as read'..Help!!I'm just about ready
to go back to OE6!
Click to expand...

I don't know what Outlook 2002 that Roady is using, but I also have
Outlook 2002 and I don't have the menu navigation he mentions for his
hints. Instead, I have:

Tools -> Send/Receive -> Work with Headers -> Download Headers
From -> (select account)

You must have the Inbox selected at the time for this menu navigation to
exist. If Outlook Today is instead highlighted, you don't get submenues
to work with headers. Rather than do this manually (and which won't get
used for the scheduled mail polls, anyway), you want to default to
headers-only downloads:

Tools -> Send/Receive Settings -> Define Send/Receive Groups.
Select the group.
Click Edit.
Select an e-mail account.
Enable the "Download item description only" option.
 
Ahhhhh...OK,I did that....and then I sent myself
junkmail...and,the whole message was there...Help!!!
 
megan said:
Ahhhhh...OK,I did that....and then I sent myself
junkmail...and,the whole message was there...Help!!!
Click to expand...

Got any rules defined? Do any look for criteria *inside* the e-mail's
body (i.e., are you searching its content)? If so, maybe the rule
forces a download of the e-mail because obviously you cannot search in
the body of an e-mail unless it gets downloaded. I know Outlook Express
has rules that look in the body and this forces the download (so have a
rule to look for a string in the body and then deleting it from the
server on a match is pointless since it had to get downloaded to do the
search).
 
Nope..no rules...I am using this with my Hotmail Account.
Hotmail determines the mail that is considered junk mail.
Most are Viagra adds..but occassionally there is an email
from someone that isn't on my address list that got
shoved in there. I prefer to download headers only like I
did in OE6 so I don't have to see some of the graphic
pictures for the porn sites, etc.

Help!!!
 
megan said:
Nope..no rules...I am using this with my Hotmail Account.
Hotmail determines the mail that is considered junk mail.
Most are Viagra adds..but occassionally there is an email
from someone that isn't on my address list that got
shoved in there. I prefer to download headers only like I
did in OE6 so I don't have to see some of the graphic
pictures for the porn sites, etc.

Help!!!
Click to expand...

A lot of options available for use on POP3 e-mail accounts are NOT
available for HTTP e-mail accounts (MSN/Hotmail). I had assumed you had
a POP3 e-mail account.

- Go to Tools -> Send/Receive Settings -> Define Send/Receive Groups.
- Select the group.
- Click Edit.
- Select the HTTP e-mail account (Hotmail).
- Select the Inbox.
- Enable the option "Download item description only".

That's the only place in Outlook to choose whether to get only headers
or the full message. Maybe last time you were suggested to go there you
forgot to highlight each folder and select the options for that folder
(they can be different for different folders). If this option is set
correctly within the Hotmail account and for the correct folder(s) but
it doesn't work then I'd have to assume that OL2002 isn't obeying this
per-folder option setting. I wouldn't be surprised since this is the
first version of Outlook with HTTP e-mail support.

Do you have the Preview pane displayed? If so, turn it off. Otherwise,
Outlook will download the e-mail selected so it can show it to you.
HTTP and POP3 e-mail accounts work differently. POP3 e-mail accounts
configured to download headers only will do just that and then you will
need to mark which ones that you want to download to read. HTTP e-mail
accounts don't use the POP3 protocol and instead a specific protocol
coded for the particular webmail service has to be used. Microsoft only
cares to support their own. So with HTTP e-mail accounts, specifying to
download headers only means absolutely nothing if you still leave the
Preview pane open. Since Hotmail is heavily mined by spammers (and a
good reason not to use Hotmail), it would behoove you to turn off the
Preview pane for ALL of your Hotmail folders.
 
Thanks.That makes sense. OE6 let me pick just the junk
mail folder to download headers only. I was using OE
because Outlook versions prior to 2002 didn't allow
hotmail. So, when I saw that 2002 did, I figured I'd try
it out. I'll try to select the entire account instead of
just a folder. If that doesn't work, I'll make sure that
the preview window isn't opened.

Quick question: the reason they said originally not to
download the entire message was due to viruses in the
message itself (not in the attachment). If the whole
message is being brought into Outlook, but the preview
pane isn't showing it, is there still a danger of a
virus? or is it only if it is displayed?
 
I don't really see how. Even when it contains a javascript compiling a virus
(quite unlikely) your Outlook security settings and/or virusscanner will
immediately kick in.

There are quite a lot of security settings (even default ones) that prevent
this from happening but still; never say never :-S
 
megan said:
Thanks.That makes sense. OE6 let me pick just the junk
mail folder to download headers only. I was using OE
because Outlook versions prior to 2002 didn't allow
hotmail. So, when I saw that 2002 did, I figured I'd try
it out. I'll try to select the entire account instead of
just a folder. If that doesn't work, I'll make sure that
the preview window isn't opened.

Quick question: the reason they said originally not to
download the entire message was due to viruses in the
message itself (not in the attachment). If the whole
message is being brought into Outlook, but the preview
pane isn't showing it, is there still a danger of a
virus? or is it only if it is displayed?
Click to expand...

At one time, a script in a file could execute a local file under the
Local security zone and have the same privileges as the logged on user.
That was fixed awhile ago and you should've performed Windows Updates
since then and/or upgraded to IE6. Scripts within e-mails can still
cause problems and why you should not preview messages from suspect
sources. They can also use web bugs or beacons or external links to
images to check if you read the e-mail (MsgTag does this which was
borrowed from spammers wanted to validate e-mail addresses). A unique
image is included in the e-mail sent to you and when you view the e-mail
with the link back to the server then they know by that unique image
that you opened the e-mail so that e-mail address is valid. Scripts can
also run timers (to open other browser windows and other nasty tricks).
The default for Outlook is to use the Restricted Sites security zone
which will not allow scripts to run in HTML-formatted e-mails, but it
won't stop web bugs or beacons. Unless you use a filtering proxy, like
SpamPal with its HTML-Modify plug-in, it is safer to NOT preview your
HTML-formatted e-mails which allows you to delete the suspect ones
first. You can enable AutoPreview in Outlook which will only give you a
text-only preview of the content of an e-mail to keep you safe and to
let you see something of the content so you know if it is good or bad
e-mail (but AutoPreview is not available for HTTP e-mail accounts, like
Hotmail).

You might want to check into using SpamPal with its Bayesian and
HTML-Modify plugins to eliminate spam and strip nasties from
HTML-formatted e-mails, but that only works with POP3 e-mail accounts.
However, you could define a POP3 e-mail account for Hotmail and use a
HTTP-to-POP3 protocol converter proxy, like Hotmail Popper. Your POP3
e-mail client connects to the POP3 side of the proxy while the HTTP side
connects to the webmail provider (Hotmail). You could then slide the
SpamPal proxy between your POP3 e-mail client and the Hotmail Popper
proxy (i.e., you would need to chain the proxies). I haven't done this
with Hotmail, but I have done it quite successfully using YahooPOPs for
my Yahoo webmail account.

Using an anti-virus product that scans incoming e-mail and using the
Restricted Sites security zone will help a lot to protect you but it
isn't as good as modifying HTML-formatted e-mails to be safe. Of
course, the safest method to view e-mails is to force them to view in
plain-text only mode
(http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307594) but you
lose a lot of oomph in a message that way.
 
Good explanation! The image thing is also taken care of in Outlook 2003.
When your receive a message the images aren't by default.You can configure
which addresses are save to send you images so when you receive an message
from that person it will display the image.
 
Back
Top