OL2002: POP3 Headers Are Duplicated

If you press the F9 key while you are online to synchronize your Microsoft Exchange mailbox with your offline folder (.ost) file, the headers from your Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) account appear to download twice.

This problem occurs because your message headers from the POP3 account are placed in the .ost file with the message from your Exchange server account when you download them while you are working offline. When you go online and press the F9 key to synchronize your accounts, the headers from the POP3 account are downloaded and the changes in the Exchange account, including the downloaded POP3 headers in the .ost file, are also brought down giving you doubled POP3 message headers in your online Inbox.

To resolve this problem, enable the Download complete item including attachments option in the POP3 account. To do this:

1. On the Tools menu, point to Send/Receive settings, and then click Define Send/Receive groups.
2. Click to select the group name, and then click Edit.
3. Under Accounts, click to select the POP3 account.
4. Click Download complete Item including attachments.
5. Click OK, and then click Close.

If you already have doubled POP3 e-mail headers and you want to keep one copy of the doubled message, download the full message and then delete the doubled header. To do this:

1. Right-click one of the doubled message headers, and then click Mark to Download message(s).
2. Press the F9 key or click Send/Receive to fully download the message.
3. Click to select the other doubled header, and then click Delete to mark the doubled header for deletion.
4. Press the F9 key or click Send/Receive to delete the doubled header from the server.

If you delete one of the doubled headers without using the previous steps, the server deletes the message.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.