The only safe way I've found to stop the message in transit is to
disconnect the modem (double click the connection icon and select
Disconnect). If you tell OE to cancel the receive, it waits until the
current message completes.

To protect himself in the future in Outlook Express (IE5+): Tools,
Message Rules, Mail Rules, New, Size more than xx KB, Do Not Download
(This needs to be at the top of your messages rules with any other rules
that have an action of Do Not Download or Delete From Server otherwise a
prior rule might trigger a download.)

Mail will download just the smaller ones. With OE5+ you won't get any
obvious indication that there are messages not being downloaded because
of the message rules. If you've just done a Send and Receive and then
immediately do another one, you'll briefly get a display of "Receiving
List of Messages" but nothing will download if all the messages are
getting skipped. If there are no messages still on the server, you
won't see the "Receiving List of Messages" at all.

If desired, you can later increase or remove the limit to download them.
(Or change the action to Delete From Server it you are sure that you
don't want them.)

You should eventually delete them from the server if you decide you
don't want them. Otherwise your server mail box will eventually reach
its limit (set by your ISP).

With many ISPs offer a web mail interface to look at your server mail
box to decide if you want the messages and, if desired, delete them
without downloading.

Or you may be able to use Telnet if they don't offer a web mail
interface. You can find these Telnet instructions at
http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_san...pop3telnet.htm

Or you might also be able to use http://mail2web.com or
http://www.mailstart.com for this function (if your ISP allows outside
access to their POP3 mail server). Or there are some shareware programs
that let you look at messages on the server.

I've set a rule with a limit that I keep enabled. When I want to
download something larger, I uncheck the rule to allow the download,
then recheck it later.

--

Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm


"John Brown" wrote in message
...
Friend is on dial up...from time to time he receives e mail messages
with large attachments. Once he starts to download such but decides he
wants to terminate it because eg the file is too big and is taking
forever to down load...how does he do that? He's with Orange Service
Provider and uses Outlook Express for mail.
Thanks.