Windows 10 App: Mail & Calendar App: Top 5 Most Annoying Issues

Windows 10 App

Mail & Calendar App

Top 5 Most Annoying Issues - Grr

1. Attachments never download

If there was something about a Mail App that you'd not expect to have a problem with, it'll be downloading attachments. Sure, you may think they might be tricky to download due to some complicated way the app developers construed how to perform such an operation, but in this app, all you have to do is click on an attachment's frame in an email and it starts the downloading. Bingo! Easy. What could go wrong?

Well, if you're a fan of watching the clothes in the washing machine tumble around in circles, then there's no problem because what happens more often than not is this ...

Solution? Use another email client or the web version of the account's service, because if you see the progress ring for longer than 10 seconds, you can safely be sure that your attachment will never ... ever ... download.

When it comes to the Mail App's attachment download woes, size of the attachments really doesn't matter.

2. Email Syncing

Sure, you've set the mail app to automatically sync each account on a certain frequency, but we all love to do a manual check don''t we? 

Well, don't bother in the Mail App, because most of time it doesn't work. Much like the attachment issue, you'll find it spinning around saying it's syncing but never finishing. Unlike the attachment woes though, this does at least eventually error and tell you that something went wrong ...

See, every cloud has a silver lining, huh?

Solution? Don't manual sync. Just let the app do it automatically on whatever schedule you set. Manual sync isn't worth the pain.

3. Sending an email to oblivion

So, you've compiled an email and the Mail App hasn't randomly crashed? Result! What could go wrong after you pressed the send button and the email has disappeared off your screen?

Well, if you've used the Mail App as your daily email app, then you'll have certainly found out by now that you can't rely on the send button actually doing what it says on the tin. Any experienced Mail App user will know by now that after sending any email via the app that they should firstly check the outbox, press sync, check it again. Clear? Great. It's gone, right? Nooooooo. You Crazy Fool! Next, check the Sent Items folder, sync, check again? Oh look, your email never shows up in the sent items? Fancy that ...

It's not everytime, but it's happens far too often that emails don't get sent, or they end up in oblivion (i.e. not in Sent Items or Outbox, but Mail App Hell).

Solution? Make sure you save a draft before you press send for any email. Drafts tend to happen mostly by default in the mail app thankfully if you spend any length of time composing, but it's worth doing it one last time before pressing send, because, anything could happen after you send that email.

Another tip, if you did forget to save a draft or can't find the draft after the email has been sent and gone missing ... Head to C:\Users\<Your logon name>\AppData\Local\Packages\microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_8wekyb3d8bbwe and check through all the folders for recent .eml or .html files as I've found my emails that have gone to oblivion usually hanging around in a folder there somewhere. You may not get all the text or pictures, but you might get something salvageable.

4. Inbox Count

You want to find out the total number of unread emails in all your accounts at a glance? Tough. 

Solution? Use another email client? It's not a big issue really, but annoying, as you'll have to go into each account and read the Inbox count number.

5. Mail Folders

Add a sub-folder to an email account at your peril because I wouldn't wait around expecting to then log into the same account's web client and find that folder anytime soon. Vice Versa is even worse! 

There's no manual folder list update button like you get in Outlook. The folders do get updated, but when it happens seems to be random. It's not on pressing sync, or opening the app, as you might think. A button is really needed here to force the folder list update.

Solution? Don't bother and/or chill out when creating sub-folders and wanting to see them in the Mail App or in another email client after creating them somewhere, because this app has a mind of it's own when it comes to updating the folder list.