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Fixing Mac Email Clients that Fall out of Sync with Server

 

Background

When configured to access the central UConn email server, both Apple Mail and Microsoft Entourage create local, cached versions of email messages and calendar events located on the server. If interruptions in the connection to the server or changes in server-side configurations occur, the local, cached copy of the an email mailbox or calendar can become out of sync with information on the server. Due to a change in the server address field, UITS has seen this occur on many faculty/staff Macintoshes following the migration to the newer Exchange 2007 email server in April 2009.

 

Symptoms

  • Email in both Apple Mail and Microsoft Entourage may not be in sync with email available through Outlook Web Access.
  • Apple Mail users may find that email attachments are not being downloaded properly.
  • Microsoft Entourage users may find that their calendars are not displaying changes in events.

Solution

The solution to any of the symptions above is simply to force a deletion of the local, cached email/calendar index and allow the client to resync with the server. Steps for resyncing with the server on both email clients are shown below.

Apple Mail
  • Open Apple Mail
  • Select mailbox from list in the left column
  • Go to the Mailbox menu and
  • Select Rebuild command
image of Apple Mail with 'Mailbox' menu selected and the 'Rebuild' command selected
click to enlarge

 

Microsoft Entourage
  • Open Microsoft Entourage
  • Select mailbox/calendar from the left-hand column
  • Go to the Edit menu
  • Select the Folder Properties command
Image of Microsoft Entourage with the Inbox selected and
click to enlarge
  • From the Folder Properties dialog:
    • Click the Empty button
    • Click OK to continue
Image of Entourage's Folder Properties dialog
click to enlarge

Note: If you have a lot of email within the mailbox that you are resyncing, it may take several minutes for your email messages to re-download to your client. Please be patient and wait for the process to complete.

 

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Updated: May 19, 2009