Hi pikk67
You can set up Outlook to use "work Offline" settings.
So it effectively downloads your email to a OST file. When you load up Outlook without being connected to the netpwirk you are prompted to Work offline and hence view all your emails.
"Synchronizing E-mail to your PC
Outlook 2003 makes it very easy to synchronize all your e-mail and calendars, etc. to your local PC. It copies everything to an "Offline Storage" file using Cached Exchange Mode. Once you tell Outlook to use a local copy of your mailbox, it begins the synchronize process. All items in all folders in your Exchange mailbox are always synchronized. To verify this has been enabled for you please follow these steps in Outlook 2003. Tools; E-mail Accounts; Next; Change button. On this screen make sure there is a checkmark in the Use Cached Exchange Mode box. This will keep a file up to date on your local computer. The default name for the file is outlook.ost. If you ever lose the connection to the server you can keep working off of this copy. Remember that with Cached Exchange Mode, you can't choose which folders to synchronize. Some people have noticed slowing when cached-mode is turned on. We only recommend it for laptop users.
If you have a large mailbox or don't want to synchronize the entire mailbox then use Offline Access so you can synchronize only the folders you choose rather than your entire mailbox. When you work offline with Outlook, you don't have any connection to the Exchange server. You can perform any operation on any message stored in your Offline Folder File. At a later time when you are ready to connect to the server, just change the mode to Online Mode. All the changes you made while working Offline are synchronized to the Exchange server.
To enable Offline Access, select Tools; E-mail Accounts; select View or Change existing Email Accounts; click Next. Choose your Exchange account and click Change. On the next screen, click More settings; click Advanced Tab; and then click the Offline Folder File Settings button. In the Offline Folder File dialog box, you can specify the location for the Offline Folders File then click OK to save the changes. Outlook will ask if you want to create a new Offline Folders file. Click Yes to create your new file. Click Ok; Next; and Finish to return to Outlook. The file has an extension of .ost and will store the items you've selected.
To select which folders to synchronize select Tools; Send/Receive; Send/Receive Settings; Define Send/Receive Groups to display the Send/Receive Groups dialog box. Under the section Setting for group "All Accounts", check the box next to Schedule an automatic send/receive every few minutes. If you want to perform a send/receive when exiting Outlook then also check the Perform an automatic send/receive when exiting. Go back to the top of the dialog box and click the Edit.. button to access the Send/Receive Settings - All Accounts dialog box. Under the Folder Options section of the dialog box, choose which folders you want to synchronize by checking the box next to the folder then click the OK button.
Warning: Keep in mind that the .ost file also takes up space on the Windows filesystem and might cause problems with your Windows quota."
Sorry its a bit long, copied from some one elses web site.
Paulj
