Recently I have combined numerous email accounts into one Google Gmail account. To manage these messages on my local Windows XP machine I have chosen Outlook 2007 since I already have the MS Office 2007 suite installed. Below there are instructions for how to remove deleted messages from view after they are deleted in an Outlook IMAP folder. Make sure you also have Outlook configured to remove purged items when switching folders.

1. Set Standard View: From Outlook’s top navigation menu select View, then from the drop down select “Current View”, and from the pop out side navigation select Messages.
2. Open Define View: Again choose Outlook’s top navigation menu select View, then from the drop down select “Current View”, and from the pop out side navigation this time choose “Define Current View”. The configuration window that appears will look like the below.

   

3. Modify Messages View: Scroll down, highlight the Messages view, and click the modify button which will pop up a new configuration window.
   Change Advanced Filter Settings: Click the Filter button followed by the Advanced tab in the new window that appears. Select the Field button, highlight the “All Mail Fields” from the drop down, and select “IMAP Status” from the pop out menu as shown in the image below.

   

   Selecting IMAP Status will also insert the necessary contents into the other two required fields which include “equals” in the Condition field and “Unmarked” into the Value field. Now click the “Add to List” button which will insert the new filter for you as shown in the below image.

   

   Click the OK button to save the filter which will open a confirmation window asking if you want to add the critieria you entered below to your search.Click the Yes button. OK out of the Custom View configuration window as well.

4. Apply View to Folder: Now click the Apply View button to apply the view to your Outlook 2007 IMAP folder. If there were any messages that had been deleted and were showing a line through them they will be removed from the current view of the folder.

On a side note you can enable advanced IMAP controls in Gmail’s settings under the Labs link.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at 11:21 PM and is filed under Insights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.