I just purchased a Surface 3 and installed Outlook from Office 365. I have the same problem others mentioned with Outlook slavishly synching to the Webmail server.

What I would like to do is to be able to download and keep mail from the webmail server and then let the server be emptied. I also want existing .pst files from my desktop Outlook program to be transferable (by exporting from the desktop and importing into Outlook on the Surface 3).

But the problem is that if I import email messages from a .pst file, Outlook on the Surface 3 uploads them to the server, and I don't want them there. If I delete messages from the server inbox, they disappear from the Outlook inbox (in the Surface 3 machine, not in the desktop which is running Outlook 2010.

Is there no way to import .pst files into the Surface Outlook without Outlook uploading them to the server? And furthermore is there no way to delete messages from the server inbox without them disappearing from Outlook?

Outlook 2010 behaves very graciously in not constantly synching to the server. Just downloads files and whether or not they are deleted from the webmail server just depends on my Advanced account settings (leave a copy of the message on the server, or not, as I choose).

You need to remove the IMAP account and add it back as a POP3 account. You'll need to use the manual configuration option as Outlook will default to IMAP if the account is supported.

Your recommendation worked thank you. Strange that I could not find this solution in previous questions.