Syncing POP Accounts and .Mac

You cannot sync POP accounts between computers.

Smart Mailboxes, are not separate mailboxes, but only search lists. The messages do not move from the Inbox, for example, to which the search rules apply. This, too, cannot be synced between computers.

The .mac account, if set up as .mac or IMAP, will perform as you outline you desire, as would any IMAP account.

You can selectively remove messages from the server, in Mail 2.x, by control-clicking on any Inbox, choose Get Info, and then selecting the correct account in the resulting window, highlighting the message on the server, and instructing Mail to remove it.

More info, and questions, please.

Ernie

While it is possible to psuedo-synchronize* POP3 electronic mail, the entire exercise is likely to be frustrating and unrewarding for you. Seriously: IMAP is the answer to your dilemma.

IMAP accounts do, by default, what you are trying to achieve using POP3 configurations, which were never intended to. Smart mailboxes, rules and AppleScripts are not the answer: IMAP is.

If you cannot create IMAP mailboxes with your current provider—an unlikely outcome these days—then consider changing providers, or give up on the idea of multiple client mail content synchronization.

*This is a rather silly exercise in which one or more clients are set to leave mail on a server in a pool of three or more clients, and one is designated to remove mail. While this will result in the automatic download of mail when any of the standard clients are used, and the automatic removal of mail when the one set to delete messages from the server is run to 'clean up' the pool, it only works for that task alone. It cannot remove mail from the server or any other client when messages are removed manually from a client. It is effectively only a partial solution, a sort of half-duplex hack for a pool of POP3 clients.

Did I mention IMAP?

I presume that you are asking me…

Click the triangle next the the Sent and Trash items in the left sidebar, and you'll seem them.

Oops - sorry, I wasn't paying close attention to what I was doing when I looked. Look for a globe icon at the end of the list, and toggle the indicator next to it. The Sent and Trash folder for that IMAP account should be there.

My AIM mail account, for example, shows these folders when I click the indicator:

• Saved Mail
• Sent
• Spam
• Trash
• VOICEMAIL

Those folders and their labels will vary according the structure of the providers IMAP accounts.

That Sent folder does not appear above in the 'master' Sent folder, but the Trash folder does appear in the 'master' Trash directory in Mail.

Is there a triangle beside the Inbox for each IMAP account? If so, click on it to expand to reveal, what hopefully will be a Sent folder, at least. Click on the Sent folder, then click on Mailbox in the menubar, place the cursor on Use This Mailbox For, and then select Sent. I expect it to then shift to reside under Sent in the Sidebar.

Btw, are these free accounts? With my free AOL IMAP account, there is a limit on how long the messages stay on the server.

More info, please.

Ernie

Also, do you have Mail Preferences/Accounts/Mailbox Behavior set to store Sent messages on the server?

Ernie

Can you provide any links to their "how to" documents?

In the Sidebar, control-click on the Inbox, and choose Get Info. Then choose each IMAP account in the resulting dialogue, use the Quota limits tab, and report what is seen on the server.

Ernie