POP account emails: emails deleted on another device remain on the iPhone

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Level 2

216 points

POP account emails: emails deleted on another device remain on the iPhone

iPhone 5S I inherited from my wife (T-Mobile) and have set up most of my email accounts: gMail and two POP accounts. All the recent software updates.

All of my previous devices have had the capability to "re-sync" POP emails: if I delete an email on one device, the email will then be removed from the other devices. However, this is not occurring on the iPhone; emails I delete via my computer or Nexus 7 remain on the iPhone. Is there a setting for this? Again, this has worked for all the rest of my devices, including several Android smart phones, and (I believe) an iPad 1.

Thanks!

Keith.

iPhone 5s, iOS 7.1.2, T-Mobile

Posted on Aug 12, 2014 3:40 PM

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Answer 1

blueOrbit

Level 1

104 points

Aug 12, 2014 3:43 PM in response to Keith Mattox

Not sure if this is completely relevant, but it's very closely related and might provide some good insight into what's going on.

Using a POP account with more than one device

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Answer 2

Aug 12, 2014 3:48 PM in response to Keith Mattox

Well it certainly didn't on the iPad. The Android handsets I can't speak for (but have my doubts), but basically if you are managing email on multiple devices, stick to IMAP or exchange.

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Answer 3

Keith Mattox Author

Level 2

216 points

Aug 12, 2014 3:54 PM in response to Kilgore-Trout

These accounts don't have an IMAP option, otherwise I would. Thanks though.

Keith.

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Answer 4

Keith Mattox Author

Level 2

216 points

Aug 12, 2014 4:02 PM in response to blueOrbit

That was actually handy to prevent iOS from deleting emails off the server after retrieving them on the iPhone. Didn't see any setting for having the iPhone re-sync against the server though. Thanks for listing that.

Cheers

Keith.

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Answer 5

blueOrbit

Level 1

104 points

Aug 13, 2014 8:05 AM in response to Keith Mattox

Ultimately, I can't think of how this would work since the POP client on the computer and iPhone would just download the new e-mails that it finds on the server. Even if the e-mail disappeared from the server, I'm not sure the POP client really cares. It doesn't have a synchronization feature like there is with IMAP; all it tries to do is download new e-mails.

Even if I download a message on my desktop mail client, delete the message, then go to an HTML mail client to check for the message again, it's still there unless I tell my desktop client to remove a copy when the message has been moved from the inbox, but even that doesn't work since my iPhone may have already downloaded the message as well. Again, no synchronization.

The only way I can think of to make this "almost work", would be to set the iPhone to fetch mail manually, so that if you've deleted it on your computer, it does not get downloaded on your iPhone (assuming your computer mail client also deletes the message from the server). The downside to this is that you won't immediately know if you have new e-mails; you'll have to manually check every time.

There may be other mail apps for the iPhone that extend POP functionality beyond what it was intended to do, but I've never used any of them.

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Answer 6

Keith Mattox Author

Level 2

216 points

Aug 13, 2014 10:46 AM in response to blueOrbit

You're probably right. I've been spoiled on the Android side by SolMail; it updates its mail listings to match what's on the server - pretty nice when I download all of the emails onto my laptop every few days or so as the subsequent deletion of all the emails on the server is then matched in the empty listing in SolMail. Kind of a "virtual IMAP". To me from the user perspective, it makes sense.

I'll try a few of the other email clients and report back. I'm pessimistic, but one never knows. One of the accounts I've had since 1996 and I'm not dropping it.

Thanks everyone.

Keith.

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