IMAP Exchange and Delete

It is because of the way that IMAP handles deletes. In IMAP mode, when a message is deleted, it is marked that way but still left on the server until you choose to erase deleted messages. If you open the account in Apple Mail or Outlook Express, you will not see the messages, but Outlook still shows them.

This is also true of messages you move. To erase them, choose to erase deleted messages in Outlook Express or Apple Mail and they will go away. There's also an option to erase deleted messages after one day in the iPhone settings.

It would be great if there was a setting to do it immediately in the iPhone, but I don't think there is.

Thanks for the comment. This makes sense and would explain my situation. Mail and my iPhone both show 51 messages in my inbox but at the end of the iPhone inbox list it says there are -495 messages total.

Ok now that I am going back to look at it, its not saying that anymore. I guess it just took a while to get everything in sync. Either way I can see how this would be a problem if your email client doesn't interpret IMAP the same way.

how did you get your iPhone and Exchange IMAP to work.... still pulling my hair out!

I have a solution that works (although not ideal) assuming you are using Outlook for your Exchange email when at your desktop/laptop.

1. You need to create a 2nd account in Outlook...an IMAP account using the same parameters you used when creating the IMAP account on your iPhone.
2. When you log into Outlook, first go to the IMAP Inbox and select "Purge Items Marked for Deletion" from the "Edit" menu. That deletes everything you had deleted on the iPhone. This menu item is only available when you have the IMAP Inbox selected.
3. You can then work as usual in Outlook...using your Exchange inbox or the IMAP inbox.

Not ideal, but works while we wait for ActiveSync or a more complete solution from Apple.

UPDATE...

This has been fixed in the 1.1.1 update. Finally!

Umm no it's not... I'm running 1.1.1 and when I delete an item from my Exchange Inbox, it does in fact show up in the Trash folder on Exchange, but it STILL shows up in the inbox. Basically the phone copies the item into the trash but never purges the original, so it still shows up in the inbox.

Come on Apple, this is basic functionality...

have u tried to set-up your e-mail app from iphone settings? like choose for deleted messages "delete after 1 day" instead of "never"?

I have IMAPs syncing working fine with Exchange 2007 and iPhone with 1.1.1 but deletion of emails from iPhone still do not update on the server. The message moves to Deleted Items but no expunge. I know 1.1.1 was suppose to fix it but does anyone have this fixed expunge working with Exchange 2007 or are you all on Exchange 2003?

I have Exchange 2003. This might be the issue but as I can't test it I am only wild guessing.

Thanks for the reply. I think it is Exch 2007. I am now using the expunge.exe (found at http://blogs.freshlogicstudios.com/Posts/View.aspx?Id=44a01293-3b32-4ee0-b23c-fa c99348e1cd ) and it is just doing an expunge IMAP command every 5 sec I believe. This works but is not exactly an pretty solution. Hopefully a slight tweak in a future iphone update will correct this.

I have mine setup to delete after one day on the iPhone and it works fine with Outlook. It's not instantaneous though and I think that's true of IMAP accounts in general with Outlook. It does take a while to update back to Outlook.

The problem that just started happening in my setup is that I've started losing folders on the iPhone if I edit their names on Outlook. When I first set it up I could make changes and it would be reflected on the iPhone. I'm investigating whether our IT made changes to the IMAP setting on our server. Now if I change a folder's name in Outlook it won't show up on the iPhone. Has anyone had this problem?

I guess the issue is in the IMAP implementation in Exchange 2007 rather than a problem on the iPhone. I am syncing my iPhone mail on three different IMAP servers (Linux CommuniGate Pro, Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007). Only EX2007 is having that problem. Maybe the coming SP1 for EX2007 will fix that...

I just applied SP1 to our Exchange 2007 and still a no-go on the delete issue (with 1.1.1). Has anyone looked into why this works for Exch 2003 and not for 2007 at an IMAP protocol level?

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