[bobbyb]

Hi there, thanks for taking the time to reply. Sadly, I have still not resolved this.

Unless, you had Outlook setup to POP all the emails from Gmail, and not leave anything there.

I am not totally sure what that is, but would it mean the e-mails would go into Microsoft outlook 2010 and not outlook in browser?

By the way, I would suggest just setting up your father with an inexpensive Chromebook that works perfectly to check Gmail, search the Internet, watch videos, read the news. The ideal solution unless he uses something like Photoshop.

That's a great shout. I'm actually looking at new laptops for him, because he's pretty set on getting a new one now, even though I'm starting to worry we won't get into the gmail account.

I don't understand why you got a randomly generated email address when you logged into webmail using a browser. However, nothing you've described seems to be due to using Outlook 2010 or Windows 7. I'd assume there is something wrong with the Gmail account. I suggest your father sign up for a new one and that he doesn't enable two step verification. That's a optional security feature if you use Gmail from a smartphone, which causes complications for every other device (since they have to use a app specific password instead). Its usually not worth it unless your smartphone is your primary computer.

I have no idea either, and i've never seen it before.I guess now I'm worried that if the account is hacked then someone else might be using it. I just don't understand why the IMAP settings in Outlook 2010 just randomly stopped working..