When you first synchronize an Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) account, all the messages in all of your folders are downloaded automatically. However, if you prefer, you can choose to download messages from specific folders.
1.
Open Windows Mail by clicking the Start button , clicking All Programs, and then clicking Windows Mail.
2.
Ensure that you're connected to the Internet, and then click an IMAP server in the Folders list.
3.
Click IMAP Folders.
4.
In the Show/Hide IMAP Folders dialog box, select a folder, and then do one of the following:
•
To view the folder and download its contents, click Show.
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To hide the folder and prevent its contents from downloading, click Hide.
If you want to see a list of the messages in an IMAP folder without spending the time to download the message bodies, you can retrieve just the e‑mail headers. To learn how, see Reducing connection time when retrieving e‑mail.