Deleted folders re-appear / Frequent IMAP password requests

[Adrian+Warner]

Hi,

My dad got a new laptop and I've spent the three days since Christmas having to convert all his old Windows Live Mail folders and emails which were locally stored to PST files, upload to OneDrive, download to the new laptop etc. as he's now using Outlook.

Got it set up successfully with the temporary password generation and it works fine. I imported his old emails via PST and did some tidying up for him. However, when I delete some of the (now empty) folders, they immediately re-appear. I have tried unsubscribing from them in the IMAP data option. Any ideas how I can get them permanently deleted?

Also, I've got him to start using Outlook on his Android phone too. He was previously using the Gmail app which was fine but wasn't syncing with Windows Live Mail on his old laptop and emails weren't pulling through to his phone (sometimes for over a day). So with more temporary password generatin and having to set up with the 'not Yahoo' method, I got Outlook going in his phone and he loved it. But now it's asking him for the IMAP password which of course needs to be generated again. He's 82 and I can't really get him to understand how to do this (and I don't really understand why it is needed myself!) but I can't keep going down to him several times a day to generate a new password and enter it for him. Any ideas for this one too please?  My fallback is to try the Yahoo app.

I've also added his emails on to Outlook on my own phone to see if the same happens, as well as a Yahoo app, if only to make sure I can see his emails even if he can't.

Laptop is Lenovo Ideapad 3, Windows 11, Outlook and Office 2021.

Phone is Nokia G50, latest version of Android and the latest Outlook app.

Thanks folks.

Adrian

[caesarome]

Do these folders appear via your Dad's online account here:

https://skyid.sky.com/signin/email/

If they are there then what happens with Outlook when you delete them from here.

Regarding the generated password you should only need to do this the once when you have the email account setup so was the 16 digit password saved successfully ?

[Adrian+Warner]

Hi @caesarome,

Thanks very much for the quick reply.

Yes, the folders do show there under Inbox in the Folders section on the lower left side. Strangely your link took me to a page that said "you can no longer create a new Sky email account" so I just went through the sky.com mobile site and logged in as my dad. Annoyingly though it then tried to open in the Yahoo app I had just downloaded a short while ago 🙄 (which didn't show the folders) so I just uninstalled the Yahoo app then it worked fine on the mobile site.

I've deleted one of the folders and I'll see what happens on the Outlook apps for us both tomorrow as well Outlook on his laptop. I did wonder if it was because I was trying to delete them too soon after setting them up and it wasn't leaving enough time to sync with the servers.

I did expect to have to do two 16 digit temporary password generations - one for the laptop and one for the phone, so that's fine. I just wasn't expecting his phone to ask for it again especially so soon.

I tried to install the Android Outlook app for him a few weeks ago but just kept getting the message that there was a problem and it needed to wait an hour. After an hour it went back to an hour and counted down again!

Good job he only lives the down road (or possibly a bad thing!)

Cheers

Adrian

[jayach]

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@Adrian+Warner wrote:

Yes, the folders do show there under Inbox in the Folders section on the lower left side.

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When you say they appear under inbox, do you mean the folders are in the inbox?

That may well cause problems, you shouldn't have have folders in the inbox, they should be separate..

Also you shouldn't need to use a generated password with Outlook (on mobile) as it is OAuth compliant so you can just say it is a yahoo account and use his normal password. (although a generated password will work, and shouldn't need regenerating)

Here's how mine appear: 

[Adrian+Warner]

Hi,

After deleting the re-appearing folders on Outlook on my own phone, they have now gone from dad's phone and laptop.

Both of our Android Outlook apps are occasionally saying we need to sign-in and when clicked wants the IMAP password. If I use my dad's Sky password that doesn't work, I have to generate another 16 digit one from the website. However, if we leave it, the sign-in banner disappears and it seems to update the inbox normally.

Unfortunately even using the Outlook app, you do need to click 'Not Yahoo' otherwise it always gives an error and you have to wait an hour to try again (when it still won't work). There are quite a few posts on here about that, my dad got a new phone a few months ago and I had to look up then why I couldn't set him up on Outlook - only the Gmail app would work.

His folders are sub-folders of the inbox. Always have been, probably because it's what I've always done with my own (Gmail, not Sky) email and at work. So the left hand side shows as follows...

 

Interestingly, I get confused now with Gmail because I wanted to create new folders but they're called Labels which seem to be very different from folders. I've got a Travel folder which I've had for years and I move emails into it frequently when I travel for work as well as my own travel bookings etc. A few weeks ago I wanted to rename it Work Travel so I could create a new folder for Personal Travel but I could only seem to create a label. Anyway that's OT sorry.

So I think it's all OK now, but could do with knowing why our Outlook apps want the IMAP password every now and again!

[jayach]

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@Adrian+Warner wrote: 

Interestingly, I get confused now with Gmail because I wanted to create new folders but they're called Labels which seem to be very different from folders. I've got a Travel folder which I've had for years and I move emails into it frequently when I travel for work as well as my own travel bookings etc. A few weeks ago I wanted to rename it Work Travel so I could create a new folder for Personal Travel but I could only seem to create a label. Anyway that's OT sorry.

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That's because Gmail works differently to other email providers. Your emails are all held in the same place, but it gives them lables to sort them. It enables emails to be in multliple "folders" whilst still only being the one email.

Organize and find emails - Google Workspace Learning Center

[Adrian+Warner]

That makes sense thanks, but I do prefer having separate folders to move them into and it also helps keep my inbox very low, sometimes even empty as I only want to keep emails that need dealing with in there, just like I do for work where I have about 250 folders (I work for a company that works with all 210+ local authorities in the country so they each have a folder for starters)

I'll have to think about using labels for personal and work within the travel folder.

Something to do when I've got nothing better to do!