Many of us today work with people virtually. I myself have partners and team members who live no where near me. So sometimes there are challenges that aren’t present when you have a physical office location. For example, how do several people check the same email account and still know which emails have been read or unread and which have been replied to? This was the very same question someone asked me recently.

My co-worker and I are going to be co-managing an email account. We’d both receive not only the incoming messages but also all the replies that we send through that account so we can keep up with quotes to clients, clarifications and so forth.

She handles everything until 4pm daily and then I take over from there.

Here’s the problem. When I check the mail, she obviously doesn’t get a copy and when she checks it, I don’t get a copy and neither of us get a copy of the replies without CCing one another to a different address. I set mine to leave the message on the server but will she be able to download them since the server will recognize that is has already been read?

I don’t suppose you have any type of solution that will allow both of us to actually download all the incoming/outgoing mail?

This was my response to her.

You can both use Webmail. That’s perhaps the quickest and easiest way. But if you prefer to use an email reader, instead of POP, use IMAP. You should first check with your web host or ISP if they support this. How to do this is easy. Just setup a new account in your email reader and select IMAP instead of POP. Enter everything as usual. Your co-worker can do the same too.

IMAP checks email just like POP. The only difference is, it doesn’t download your emails to your computer. All emails stay on the web server. So no matter who checks the account and from anywhere, all the emails stay online. It’s kinda like editing web pages live with FrontPage.

There are only two things you must be careful. If you or or your co-worker deletes any email from the account it is gone forever. Also, make sure you make the email account large enough to store emails that you might want to keep.

Here’s a video to show how to check emails using IMAP in Outlook Express or ThunderBird.