Mail App Draft only local

[mascaritas]

Hello everyone

I am aware that there were similar posts but no solution or workaround was mentioned so far.

Is there a way to get the draft folder working in sync with the connected mail account like every other folder (inbox, sent ..) does?

so you could actually use the mail app as a fully functional email client?

I haven't managed to sync drafts whether this was on Hotmail, outlookcom nor MS Exchange accounts in the mail app

Highly appreciate information on this subject since win10 mail app is still suffering the same huge fail as the w8 mail app did.

The irony is: on my Apple devices (surely not meant for work) this works flawless...

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Hi and welcome to the Forum!

I was looking at your post and couldn't not reply as I just finished sorting through all this WX Mail junk with my friend in NorCal.
The short answer is yes, you can sync your drafts folder along with all other folders in each of your E-mail accounts as you want to.

However, this can take some work.

First, remove all your E-mail accounts, then logout of your Live account with WX, and login to your local WX account. If you don't have one, WX will ask you to create one. It can be "SKIPPY" or something simple with an easy password (you can go back and delete this account later). Log back into WX with the newly created local account, and create only 1 E-mail account, your Outlook.com account. Get that working and syncing first, and then add each of your other E-mail accounts (ONE AT A TIME PLEASE, NOT ALL AT ONCE!!). Get each E-mail account working sending/receiving/syncing first, and then do the next one.
After you get them all working, then logout of your Windows local account, and log back into your Windows Live ID account for WX. Then go into your WX Mail app, and test each E-mail account. They should all be working now!

If they don't, and here's the magic jelly bean you need--it turns out that Microsoft has a glitch with some (maybe all we don't know as we just discovered this last week) Anti-Virus or Internet Security problems and their firewall applets. So, if you're running Norton, Avast, McAfee, Comodo, AVG, etc. you'll have to manually DISABLE both your firewall and real-time protection (auto-scan) applets in your AV app, and repeat this whole procedure. There seems to be a time lag of about 1 hr. or more with the period that your firewall or RTP (Real Time Protection) scanner applets are disabled that Microsoft needs in order for the Mail app to sync. This of course is different for each AV app (we've tested so far Norton & Avast, not any others). But, it's worked for me for 4 accounts (1. Outlook.com; 2. Verizon ISP webmail; 3. Google GMAIL; & 4. Yahoo! Email). I have all 4 running on WX-Mail on my laptop. And yes it works!

For the moment, you should leave your Exchange webmails, or any Exchange Active-Sync webmail accounts out of the mix until you get your other E-mail accounts working. Then if you want to experiment with those, give 'em a try. All my Exchange & ActiveSync E-mail accounts from my various schools I worked at have expired so I have no access. From the other guys on The WX forums I'm on, it's still a no-go.

Also, and I just told another fellow Forum-user on a similar E-mail thread here this, so I will mention it to you as well; you won't be able to use any webmail accounts that require IMAP/IMAP4 access. They don't work on any of the major ISPs with WX or WLM or Outlook--this includes Verizon, Charter, Cox, AT&T, and several others. This can save you lots of time, as much of Microsoft's documentation says WX Mail support this, but it's not the Mail app with the problem, it's security settings at the ISPs. They haven't wanted to make that work--and with Verizon, I've been working on it for 5 years with them. No fix in sight!

Hope this helps.
<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>

 

[mascaritas]

Thank you Bigbear for the detailed Workaround.
However I was looking for something more convenient, a Togglebutton "disable sync for draft folder" which can be simply unchecked or an hot fix release on the Ms app store.
Do you have an approach how to let the folks at Microsoft where the problem is and how to fix this? I know that is actually their job but the don't seem to care since win8 came out, a long time ago

Alternative: do you know a properly working mail app from the win store?

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Hi again,
Thanks for your good words. Sorry I haven't gotten back to you. Been painting my house, and getting ready for out-of-town company in this week.

Sorry, I don't have a more convenient fix to provide for you. There is no hot fix release for this problem, as yet. However, Microsoft is rumored to be coming out with a Service Pack1 for Win10 around the end of the year, possible Q1 2016. Timing is of course sketchy, as a Service Pack as you know contains hundreds or even thousands of various bug fixes from reports coming from Users of the new OS (Win10). They may or may not include your "Togglebutton", haven't heard many people (only a couple) even mention this issue; as we're all still trying to figure it out like I said in my earlier post. [I thought we were doing pretty good just to get things working!].

And yes, I do have an approach to let folks at Microsoft know about this problem. There are 2 methods I use: (1.) There are folks who actually are Microsoft employees or former employees who volunteer on this Forum (Windows Forums) and other forums I volunteer on who regularly monitor these posts in the Win10 forum. And (2.) I also post this information on the Windows Insider Community Forum, where we folks who volunteer our time to test Win10 (about 3.9 million of us worldwide), report issues such as this to the Insiders Forum feedback section. We are still uncovering many issues with Win10, especially with E-mail, so they are quite busy addressing all of them; there are literally thousands of issues to deal with and Microsoft has a big team of engineers and programmers dedicated to this. Hopefully, the guys working on the E-mail sections will acknowledge the issues we've uncovered so far and the new ones which are still being reported on a regular basis.

I had some issues with the native Mail app in both Win8 and Win8.1, but as I didn't use it anyway, I never got around to investigating this until I was trying to solve this problem for one of our users with a problem on Win10 Mail and her Cox ISP webmail. Had another friend with similar problems, so I jumped in and found the workaround I relayed to you above.

In response to your alternative, I suggest you try Windows Live Mail 2012; that's what I'm using on my Sony laptop with Win10 on it. I don't know if it's in the MS App Store or not; but you can google it and download from a legit Microsoft page, just search on WLM or Windows Live Essentials. The Live Essentials installer will also let you de-select the other 8 programs in Essentials if you don't want them, such as Messenger, Live Photo Gallery, etc. You can also safely download from CNET or SOFTONIC; but they have some non-harmful spyware you have to get rid of, so if that's a problem for you, just get it directly from Microsoft site.

You can also try Thunderbird, which is an OpenSource type E-mail client and has been around for years. I haven't personally tested on Win10; but one of my colleagues in my local Computer Club uses it on Win10 and likes it. However, it's not as full featured as you might desire. It's similar to Postbox or similar slimmed down apps. For me, it's missing too many features, as I'm an old Outlook guy, having used all the bells and whistles in the Corporate Business world, so WLM fits the gap between truly full-featured and a slim client (also called Thin Client) E-mail solution.

I'm running the WLM 2012 in tandem here on my Win10 laptop with native Win10 Mail and they are working together nicely (nice surprise!). this no doubt has something to do with Win10 increase multi-tasking multi-app stability improvement over previous versions of windows. Not sure.

If you decide to try WLM 2012 or Thunderbird, let us know how you like it or not, as that feedback will help other folks looking for an E-mail alternative to the Win10 native Mail app.

Hope this information proves helpful to you,

Best,
<<<BBJ>>>

 

[ussnorway]

The draft folder doesn't sync by default because its a DRAFT folder and the point of calling it a draft is that it's un-finished (not ready for publish);

• in w8 the default "Mail" app will right click to bring up the sync option... or just press the [f5] key.
• in the wx mail app there is a snyc buttion.

Reguardless of Windows system used each mail app draft folder is separate and will only sync to the online version of that machines folder.

Work around: if this draft needs to be synced to another Windows machine for whatever reasion you can always "move" it to another "folder" and then sync that folder online... you can even call this folder something like "Draft share" and then open it in any Windows mail app that knows your username and password... if that floots your boat.

 

[mascaritas]

with all due respect,
when you will enter your professional career, you will see that there will be a reason for a draft folder [a state of the art, therefore synced one]
and furthermore you will be so disappointed that folks at MS decided to work with local folders for their electronic mail client---

concerning your workaround, I suggest you try that out first, I can move sent and received mails to custom folders but not the ones from the application draft folder, somehow I think productivity is not what they have in mind with this client...

 

[ussnorway]

when you will enter your professional career, you will see that there will be a reason for a draft folder [a state of the art, therefore synced one]
and furthermore you will be so disappointed that folks at MS decided to work with local folders for their electronic mail client---

By all means pick some other Mail app mate.

concerning your workaround, I suggest you try that out first, I can move sent and received mails to custom folders but not the ones from the application draft folder, somehow I think productivity is not what they have in mind with this client...

I have tested and while Microsoft Mail isn't everyones cup of tea, I have to use it professionally because my clients do...

• Assuming wx mail app (default settings);

Goto your Draft folder, pick the email you want to move then press the sellect button {marked 1} and then the move option {marked 2}

then select the folder you want to move it too.

You can set the other folders to auto-sync but the default is not too, so when you log in on another system with this same email, press the folder and then press the snyc buttion.

 

[mascaritas]

Why should I pick another mail app than the built in one, at the end I pay license fee for that OS on my device.
Microsoft should fulfil at least the most basic standard feature, like every tamagochi mail client does by the way.

You write an email, its auto saved to the drafts folder and from there its synced, easy but at the same time important for work.
Why turn of the sync on the draft folder and bruteforce people to manually move messages around, is that supposed to be smart in any way?

I guess it wouldn't hurt to consult an interface designer or just a random user to find out what is important.

 

[mascaritas]

Please if anyone has access to MS product development, arrange a feedback so products can actually improve and not remain in the flintstone era forever in their most basic features...

by the way: I tried to provide this feedback long before winX was out via official Forum and support hotline.
action [and notice?] taken by MS: none

Cheers

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

If you were one of us 5 million Insiders who tested out the Win10 preview, you have 2 ways to get your feedback noticed by MS. One is the multiple E-mails and messages that MS sends out to both TP testers of Win10 and feedback section of Win10 legit via upgrade or pre-loaded install. The second way is to log onto Microsoft.com, and go to Insiders Forum (perhaps you were meaning this forum), and place your feedback request there via Post. I have been doing this for over a year, and yes, MS has fixed some things, but as all software does, not everything. And also it takes time to fix programs, and even more time to fix a feature embedded in the OS such as Win10 native Mail App is working with billions of lines of code. If you've never wrote, developed, and sold programs or OSes before this may not have occurred to you to that it might take some time. I agree they need to fix it, but you need to make sure you are telling MS in the right locations where your problems need to get addressed.

Cheers!
<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>
(not a Microsoft employee)

 

[mascaritas]

well thanks for your Suggestion but guess what:
me and a huge number of people have told MS via customer support official forum and insider preview about the flaw many years ago already (when w8 and wp was out)

I have not written the code for a mail client but I know that if a mail client is able to sync inbox, outbox and user created folders, then it is capable of syncing the draft folder. This is for sure true; the mail Client of a tamagochi is able to do that...

in fact I see it the other way around: when designing the code for a mail Client somebody has to put effort in actually define an exception for the draft Folder to not be synced.

regardless of all this: how many hours, days, weeks months or even years do you think it should take to apply the Standard "sync" behaviour to that draft Folder?

Regards

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Interesting; not surprising, but interesting.

I'm thinking about 2 days to 2 months of time depending on how many coders it would take to resolve that problem and put things back in the Mail client the way they used to be (say like WLM or Outlook Express). If it was one coder, of course it would take longer; if it was 2 or more (a team of coders) is would certainly take less time. The issue is all about the $$, as it always is. Microsoft has always deemed it's cheaper to code a new OS version to fix problems with existing versions, due to the exhorbitive cost of debugging and update/version management. If it took say 5 coders to fix this problem in a week, how much in dollars and cents would it cost the company to pay for the time of those 5 coders, not mention the lost time that they could have been assigned to fix other bugs elsewhere in Win10 or other Microsoft products such as Office or Mail. Could be 5 coders at $80/hr. at 400 man-hours of labor; $32,000, unburdened cost of course. So $32k to fix this problem, not a lot of money consider the billions MS makes annually. I agree that this cost seems pretty low, and pretty achievable. So, the question is that if we could quantify the bugfix at a specific dollar amount (in our example, $32k); why won't Microsoft do it? Is it because they are too busy, too understaffed, the cost is too high to be practical, or the last one: they just don't care.

I'm sorry I don't have the answer to this; but it might be worth asking Microsoft this question. I haven't gotten a lot of things fixed this way over the years with them, a few here and there where really large corporate clients are concerned, as they are the "squeaky wheel" at MS customer service. You really do have to phrase it just like you did in response to my post. Even though you have asked it about earlier versions of Window Mail, it might be worth asking again in W10; especially given that there is new top management at the MS helm these days.

Hopefully we'll get some kind of response from them. Keep us posted.

Cheers!
<<<BBJ>>>

 

[ussnorway]

Is it because they are too busy, too understaffed, the cost is too high to be practical, or the last one: they just don't care

I assume it's because people asked for that to be included...

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

@Norway: LOL!! I hear you on that one!!

<<<BBJ>>>