using imap with outlook exchange (or gmail), but dont sync read/unread info

Question

We're looking to change from running our e-mails on our host server (using horde) to using Outlook Exchange Online (Microsoft's hosted version of Outlook Exchange).

The main thing that we need to do is to be able to run one main account (contact@...) on IMAP, and have that running on multiple computers, but we don't wont to sync the read/unread info back to the server, we want to sync everything else: inbox, sent items, etc., just not the read/unread markers.

Normally you can't do this but I was wondering seeing as Exchange seems to be more advanced than other mail servers. Is this possible? If so, which settings need to be altered?

I was also wondering wether G-mail for business could acheive this, as an alternative method.

Answer 1

Perhaps you are looking for the Exchange Server property of Maintain per-user read and unread information for this folder described by Microsoft as :

When you select this setting for a public folder, the items in the folder change from the Unread state to the Read state for each user when the items are viewed by the user.

However, the state changes from Unread to Read only for the user who viewed the item. When another user views an item that has been viewed by other users, the item appears in the Unread state for that user. When the item is viewed by the user, the item changes to the Read state. Therefore, the Read or Unread state for items is maintained per user. The status is not maintained per public folder.