ensuring laptop and desktop mail stays in sync

[Miles_stylus]

I have a desktoo running outlook and a laptop doing the same. At the moment I download by POP3 accounts to the deskop however I am spending a lot more time on the road at the moment and would like to be able to download my POP3 accounts to my laptop and then when I get home sync with the desktop so that
1) I can see all the emails I have sent and receieved from the laptop on the desktop
2) my laptop has the latest set of mails and calander entries in when I next leave the house.

I think that this is not possible with Outlook - is it possible with Exchange etc (do I need a server always on behind the firewall for this to be effective?) If I can't do it with MS products what add on's etc do you recommend to do this?

I've googled and have just disapeared under the information and a part of me thinks "surely MS allow this to happen..."!

Many thanks

Miles

[Plotloss]

If you use IMAP rather than POP3 the messages stay on the server meaning that sync isnt an issue.

[tycho]

Gmail uploads your sent mail to their server. So you could set your outlook to leave copies of your mail on the server and log in on your laptop and desktop and still see the same messages IIRC.

[sp60]

Set one of the machines to leave mail on the server (a setting in the options in outlook/thunderbird/Outlookexpress) then make this machine the second one to fetch mail via pop3. Although this won't strictly synchronise the mail, it will ensure you get two identical copies in the first instance.

[roadsweeper]

Plotloss said:

If you use IMAP rather than POP3 the messages stay on the server meaning that sync isnt an issue.

This is by far the best solution as you can then usually also access your email (including sent items, etc.) by webmail, PDA, etc. and you always see the same thing.