Well, you have provided one of the many reasons I don't use Unified Folders. I prefer to keep my accounts separate, and I use a Saved Search to collate unread messages. In your situation, I'd be using Message Filters to move these messages into topic- or correspondent-related folders. But we all find our own very different ways of managing things. ;-)

First you could simply ask your correspondents to use whatever single email address you prefer to work with. However it's done, if your correspondents send one message to multiple accounts, only you can decide which particular copy is best to keep. You'd need a fairly sophisticated tool to recognize similar messages in different accounts, decide which to keep and which to remove and where to store what you did retain. If you rely on a "first arrived" assessment, your correspondence could end up being scattered across your multiple accounts.

At a technical level, each message sent to a particular address is unique and different from all the other copies sent to your other email addresses. I'm actually quite surprised to see that when I view such messages here in Unified Folders, it collates them into a tree; it clearly recognizes that the messages are related. I had expected it to use the unique message ID numbers within the headers, but it may also be taking account of the subject line content. Of course, any older messages and their replies will also be lumped into the thread, so removing duplicates can be non-trivial.

I was thinking of suggesting an add-on for detecting and removing duplicate messages, but I find the one I use declines to search "special folders", by which it means Saved Searches and, because they are essentially the same, Unified View folders.

Thanks Sharon.

Please give me the "Add-On". As it will really help me. If it declines "Special Foldes", its fine.

I believe that "Technically" it should not be difficult to detect duplicate messages. If the "Sender", "File Size", "Time Stamp", "Subject", all matches then it has to be a "Duplicate".

On the other hand, I had given you the 3 email i.d.s as a "Simplified example". I am working as a Sr. Manager in the Firm and have 4 sub-ordinates who report me. I have kept a Unified Inbox for myself and the 5 sub-ordinates. Its common that my correspondents send message to them, quite occassionally, with a cc to me. That is, some of the correspondents send cc to me. The others not.

So obviously this problem could be resolved more easily by having the ADD-ON or the Feature vide which it can detect "Duplicate Messages" in the Unified Inbox (all same except the Recipient Account). Also I saw several users complaining about Erroneous Duplication Occassionally (due to Server Problem, or Index File Issues, etc).

The ADD-ON can be useful in such situations as well.

Thanks.