Duplicate Messages in Outlook Express

I have been using Outlook Express successfully now for a long time. Recently I discovered that my Yahoo storage was creeping up. This was
surprising b/c I regularly delete email in Outlook Express and expected
that email to then also be deleted on the Yahoo server. Upon further
investigation, I realized that I had checked the box (Tools/Accounts/Properties/Advanced) that says to leave my messages on the server but NOT the box for "remove from server when deleted from "Deleted Items ". I recently got a new computer and I must have forgotten to check that box.

So...I checked the box. Now when I do a send/receive, all 20,000 of my email messages are trying to download themselves into Outlook Express. That would be a mess to sort through. Is there no way that I NOW can set up to delete messages in Yahoo when they are deleted in Express w/o having to have messages downloaded twice? Is there a workaround?

The other things that makes this complicated is that I have a lot of in my Outlook Express that are organized in various folders. I want to keep those messages organized this way.

I thought about going ahead with and downloading the duplicates and then using a OE Duplicate Remover Utility from shareware to delete all of the duplicate. The problem I'm running into is two fold. #1, once I delete them from Outlook, Yahoo will too and then I will have all of these messages on my computer that I don't have on the server. This defeats the point. I use different computers and want to keep them in sync. Problem #2 is that I cannot find a utility advanced enough to let me choose where to delete the duplicates from. I want the emails to stay in the folders. I do not want to have to reorganize all of these messages. (I have a relatively recent backup of my Outlook Express so I'm comfortable with playing with the data).

I would love it if I could just wip out my Yahoo and then upload messages from Outlook Express this way I could start from scratch and have the two match but as I understand it. This is not possible.

I'm tired of going in circles and thought I'd ask people that know more than me.

I'm hoping my dilemma and question make sense. I look forward to your
help. Thanks

Chrystal

 

Chrystal in TX--I am a little confused about what is going on. But maybe this reference (and the link in it) will solve the problem.
http://email.about.com/od/outlookexpresstroubles/qt/et_duplicates.htm
If not, would you confirm that you have set OE up to download Yahoo messages to your OE account? And that you want to keep the Yahoo messages on the Yahoo server even after deleting from OE?
Note that you have to Delete from the OE Deleted Items folder before the instruction to Delete from Server will take effect. You can do that manually or from OE|Tools|Options|Maintenance tab|check the box at the top "Empty messages from the "Deleted Items folder... ". Otherwise items in the Deleted Files folder will just stay in that folder.
I am somewhat surprised that Yahoo has been willing to keep so many messages on their server. I would have expected them to notify you after a few hundred at most.

P.S. As far as duplicate messages already downloaded to OE, you can hold down Control and left click all you want to individually delete. Then right click anywhere on one of the highlighted files and click Delete.