In ,
VanguardLH typed on Sun, 8 Nov 2009 19:34:39 -0600:
BillW50 wrote:

In ,
VanguardLH typed on Sun, 8 Nov 2009 15:20:49 -0600:
BillW50 wrote:

In ,
DL typed on Sun, 8 Nov 2009 16:06:07 -0000:
Depends on version of Outlook, but start looking under Options
Do not set for less than 10 minutes otherwise resource problems
could occur

Really? I never heard of this problem. I have set Outlook 97/2000
for 5 minutes and I don't ever recall a problem.

The most common problem of overly short polling intervals is of
still performing one mail poll when another comes along that is
scheduled to start. The result is the first mail poll gets aborted
before it finishes because a new one started. Outlook may end up
re-retrieving the same e-mails because it retrieved them once but
its mail session got aborted before it could delete them from the
server and before it updated its UID list.

If your retrieved e-mails are huge in size, it takes longer for them
to download. If they are large enough to take long enough, they
could still be getting retrieved when the next mail poll is
scheduled to occur. Bam, you step on your current mail session and
abort it with a newly started mail session.

Also, if you get so many e-mails at a high rate thinking that you
need to have a short polling interval to get them as soon as they
arrive, you still won't be able to read all those e-mails as they
come in fast and furious. So the polling interval can still be
longer because it'll take you some time to get reading through the
ones you just got. 5 minutes, or less, is considered abusive to
the e-mail provider because if you were getting e-mails as faster
or faster than that you still wouldn't get done processing them
yourself that quick. 10 minutes is considered a polite load on the
mail server. If it's for your home e-mail account, just how many
e-mails do you get in a day that a 15- or 20-minute polling
interval can't handle?

After all, although you set Outlook to poll at 10-, 15-, or
20-minute intervals, you don't have to be concerned that your host
won't be powered up that long for you to check for new e-mails. No
matter what polling interval is configured in Outlook, it always
does a poll on their zeroeth minute. That is, if polling is
enabled, and after Outlook loads and is ready, it will do an
immediate poll. So as soon as you start Windows and can load
Outlook is when you do your first mail poll. Based on the volume of
e-mails you get *thereafter* and how fast you can read them, just
how fast do you need to poll again?

E-mail is NOT a chatting venue where immediacy is expected and
required to continue a discussion. For immediacy, use a messenger
client.

Well I generally use IMAP servers instead of POP, does that make a
difference?

IMAP uses more resources on the mail server than does POP. Rather
than just sync with items in a mailbox, IMAP has to sync item across
multiple folders.

Well that is true, but IMAP is different in the respect that it can be
set to only poll headers and not download the body of the messages
and/or attachments. Plus you have control which folders to poll. Thus
IMAP can use much less.

And if mail servers which one usually pays for doesn't like
polling too often, why are they not complaining and asking users to
poll less?

I said it was polite not to poll when not needed, just like it is
polite not to butt in the front of the line. Plus more and more
e-mail providers ARE establishing connection quotas due to the abuse
by overzealous users.

I have no problems with changing if my server ask me too. Although I
never heard a peep.

--
Bill
Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) - Windows XP SP2