How to Sync Email Clients on Two Computers

Keeping email accounts synced on multiple computers is a common problem for people who don't use Web based email like Gmail or Hotmail. If you have one computer at home and another at the office, you may not be able to access the same emails and email history on both. Many people now have laptops for traveling and desktops for home use, which presents more or less the same challenge. Fortunately, the solutions to this problem are quite simple and generally don't cost anything. Whether you are using a third party software or converting to an online email client, syncing email clients on two computers is easy and worth the effort.

Instructions

• Set one computer to download and delete emails from the server and the other to download only. All email clients these days allow you to do this. Just change your preferences to the appropriate setting on each computer. Note that this is not the best strategy because if you send an email from one computer it will not appear in the "Sent" folder in the other, nor will your contacts be added to both computers if they are added to one.

• Consider using a third party software or service to address the issue. This is easier to do if you use the most common email clients like Outlook, Outlook Express or Thunderbird. BeInSynch (see Resources) is one such service that allows you to keep all kinds of data, including email, synced among two or more computers. Try Microsoft Exchange if you use Microsoft Outlook, or try the open source alternative Zimbra (see Resources) if you don't want to pay for the official Microsoft service.

• Consider converting to the world of Web based email clients like Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, or Hotmail. All of these have different strengths and features, but the important thing is that you can access all of your email data (sent mail, incoming mail, contacts, etc.) from any computer with an Internet connection. This allows for maximum flexibility and makes your email data portable. You can even set a Web based client to receive mail from a different address so you don't have to change your email address but are still using the Web based client.