Q: How do I sync road runner email on computer and iPad

Roadrunner is POP3 only. To get the function you want, Roadrunner

would have to switch to the IMAP protocol and it does not currently

offer IMAP as an option.

I've had my roadrunner account, my first personal email address, for years. I absoutely hate managing my roadrunner inbox across multiple devices - deleting the same emails multiple times.

I just recently created an .icloud email account. It appears run on IMAP servers. Regardless, it allows seemless email management across iMac, iPhone and iPad. I guess I will be fading away from using Roadrunner to iCloud.

Road Runner does support IMAP but they don't advertise it very well. The instructions are at:

https://www.timewarnercable.com/en/support/internet/step-by-step/twc-mail.html

If you can't send emails when you're not using Road Runner internet try using the SMTP server: mobile-smtp.roadrunner.com

The instructions are on Time Warner's website but it will work for all roadrunner.com email addresses. Road Runner was a subsidiary of Time Warner and in 2012 they renamed Road Runner to Time Warner Cable Internet. You can read about their history and other companies that offer Road Runner internet at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_Runner_Internet

With iOS 6 or 7  the email setup has gotten smarter, and now tries to figure out whether your ISP supports IMAP, and if it does, creates an IMAP account on the iPhone. If it your ISP does not support IMAP it creates a POP3 account. There are 2 problems with this added intelligence:

1. Sometimes it makes a mistake, and creates a POP account even if the ISP supports IMAP.
2. Sometimes even if your ISP supports IMAP you really would prefer a POP account.

I had this issue just yesterday. The phone would auto select POP even though the server supported IMAP.

To get around this put in a fake email address when setting it up, ios 6 or 7 will then try to autodiscover the account settings when it cant it will ask you to fill in the server details and you can select pop or imap as shown in the screen shot below

With iOS 6 or 7  the email setup has gotten smarter, and now tries to figure out whether your ISP supports IMAP, and if it does, creates an IMAP account on the iPhone. If it your ISP does not support IMAP it creates a POP3 account. There are 2 problems with this added intelligence:

1. Sometimes it makes a mistake, and creates a POP account even if the ISP supports IMAP.
2. Sometimes even if your ISP supports IMAP you really would prefer a POP account.

I had this issue just yesterday. The phone would auto select POP even though the server supported IMAP.

To get around this put in a fake email address when setting it up, ios 6 or 7 will then try to autodiscover the account settings when it cant it will ask you to fill in the server details and you can select pop or imap as shown in the screen shot below

With iOS 6 or 7  the email setup has gotten smarter, and now tries to figure out whether your ISP supports IMAP, and if it does, creates an IMAP account on the iPhone. If it your ISP does not support IMAP it creates a POP3 account. There are 2 problems with this added intelligence:

1. Sometimes it makes a mistake, and creates a POP account even if the ISP supports IMAP.
2. Sometimes even if your ISP supports IMAP you really would prefer a POP account.

I had this issue just yesterday. The phone would auto select POP even though the server supported IMAP.

To get around this put in a fake email address when setting it up, ios 6 or 7 will then try to autodiscover the account settings when it cant it will ask you to fill in the server details and you can select pop or imap as shown in the screen shot below