Outlook 2013 (IMAP) will eat your data like a sumo wrestler at a buffet
Tags:
- Phones
- Outlook
- IMAP
- Bandwidth
- Outlook 2013
Last response: in General Connectivity
drandersoninc
September 5, 2013 12:51:01 PM
I just learned the hard way how to go from using 16GB/month of my phones data plan to 3GB/month - don't use MS Outlook 2013 on a metered connection.
Here's a related link that put me on the track of the issue, which I've now confirmed from personal experience: Outlook 2013 Bug when using IMAP - Beware the Bandwidth Blowout!
I use my phone at my office location to connect to the internet. Recently my laptop (which was running Outlook 2010) went kaput, right around the time of my phone's data cycle resetting (this is important later). It is also important to note that up until this point I was consuming roughly 3-4GB per month on my phones data plan.
When I rebuilt the laptop I upgraded to Office 2013 including Outlook 2013. I set my IMAP accounts back up and off I went on my merry way. Until about 3 days later I had already blown through my 3-4GB limit, and given this was about 5 days into my plan this wasn't a good thing. I assumed that there were some updates / processes pulling data in the background and started searching for them as best I could.
Another week, another 4GB. By the end of the data cycle I had blown through 16GB and was pulling my hair out. And then I came across the posting above and decided to test it. I had assumed that data was being sent / received only when Outlook told me it was actively sending / receiving. So I shut everything but Outlook down, made sure all my folders were synched, and then swapped to my phone for internet and watched the data usage over that metered connection
Invariably I would see data getting pulled through the connection (copiou amounts), in the background, as Outlook wasn't actively sending / receiving anything. When I killed Outlook the data usage immediately stopped. Outlook 2013 and IMAP, for some reason, is continually resynching data behind the scenes. Even running 2013 in "Metered Connection - Offline mode", while it did help, still pulled more data than just sending / receiving.
So starting into my next data cycle I changed just one thing: When using my phone for internet, I never open Outlook 2013. I run my GMail in an internet browser and do my email that way. I haven't changed my web surfing habits, only the usage of 2013. And the result has been a return to my previous usage characteristics of 3-4GB/month.
Some have converted back to 2010, I'm going to try to stick it out until they fix this. So this is just an fyi in case others come across the same issue, as I didn't see it listed on the TomsHardware site.
Happy (safe) surfing!
Here's a related link that put me on the track of the issue, which I've now confirmed from personal experience: Outlook 2013 Bug when using IMAP - Beware the Bandwidth Blowout!
I use my phone at my office location to connect to the internet. Recently my laptop (which was running Outlook 2010) went kaput, right around the time of my phone's data cycle resetting (this is important later). It is also important to note that up until this point I was consuming roughly 3-4GB per month on my phones data plan.
When I rebuilt the laptop I upgraded to Office 2013 including Outlook 2013. I set my IMAP accounts back up and off I went on my merry way. Until about 3 days later I had already blown through my 3-4GB limit, and given this was about 5 days into my plan this wasn't a good thing. I assumed that there were some updates / processes pulling data in the background and started searching for them as best I could.
Another week, another 4GB. By the end of the data cycle I had blown through 16GB and was pulling my hair out. And then I came across the posting above and decided to test it. I had assumed that data was being sent / received only when Outlook told me it was actively sending / receiving. So I shut everything but Outlook down, made sure all my folders were synched, and then swapped to my phone for internet and watched the data usage over that metered connection
Invariably I would see data getting pulled through the connection (copiou amounts), in the background, as Outlook wasn't actively sending / receiving anything. When I killed Outlook the data usage immediately stopped. Outlook 2013 and IMAP, for some reason, is continually resynching data behind the scenes. Even running 2013 in "Metered Connection - Offline mode", while it did help, still pulled more data than just sending / receiving.
So starting into my next data cycle I changed just one thing: When using my phone for internet, I never open Outlook 2013. I run my GMail in an internet browser and do my email that way. I haven't changed my web surfing habits, only the usage of 2013. And the result has been a return to my previous usage characteristics of 3-4GB/month.
Some have converted back to 2010, I'm going to try to stick it out until they fix this. So this is just an fyi in case others come across the same issue, as I didn't see it listed on the TomsHardware site.
Happy (safe) surfing!
More about : outlook 2013 imap eat data sumo wrestler buffet
drandersoninc
September 9, 2013 10:09:25 AM
g-unit1111 said:
Wait so does this only affect the mobile version of Office 2013 or is it across the board? Wow, this is interesting.
I can only confirm my scenario: Outlook 2013 installed on a PC with an IMAP account. On a non-metered network it wouldn't be an issue (cause the data is free), but on a metered connection (like it was using my cell phone) it autonomously consumes data in copious amounts in the background....
KactusOTP
September 12, 2013 7:06:15 PM
I can actually confirm this on my network with outlook 2013. I was investigating ~ 105GB of uploads last month, since this is a significant chunk of my quota, when I noticed there was ~120mb of upload every hour regardless of time of day. First thought was that something on my network was infected but after scanning and checking I couldn't find anything. I resorted to monitoring tcpview (from sysinternals) on each system and roughly twice an hour I would see outlook begin to send a large amount imap traffic (up to 55mb at a time) to the remote mail server.
This alone would have accounted for > 86GB on my system alone.
Interesting thing though, going back a few months I didn't have this sort of traffic so it must have been something that changed in an update.
Cheers
Kam
This alone would have accounted for > 86GB on my system alone.
Interesting thing though, going back a few months I didn't have this sort of traffic so it must have been something that changed in an update.
Cheers
Kam
grandster
September 21, 2013 5:53:00 AM
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