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Fix Outlook 2007 error “Your IMAP server has closed the connection. This may occur if you have left the connection idle for too long.”

When using an IMAP account, like Gmail or Google apps, in Outlook 2007 you get an annoying dialog box stating “Your IMAP server has closed the connection. This may occur if you have left the connection idle for too long. Details: LOGOUT received …”

Basically Outlook periodically attempts to do a “Send/Receive” and fetch mail headers from the IMAP server but that’s not really necessary since its a ‘live’ connection.

The solution is to stop Outlook 2007 from doing this “Send/Receive” on the IMAP account:
Navigate to Tools->Send/Receive->Send/Receive settings->Define send/receive groups or simply press the hot key Ctrl+Alt+S
Exclude the IMAP account from any group that has a automatic send/receive scheduled (e.g. “All accounts” group)

The setting for Outlook Express is:
Tools->Accounts…, click “Properties” for my IMAP account
Under “General” tab, uncheck “Include this account when receiving mail or synchronizing”