Emails disappearing

[J-]

emails I've received on my phone disappear when I download them on my computer. I've tried deleting and reinstalling my email account from my phone, didn't work. I also have my phone settings set to keep all emails until I delete them. Doesn't seem to help. Ideas?!? iPhone 6 with a Telus email account.

[NFtoBC · Accepted solution]

If your account is set up as IMAP, which causes actions on one device to be reflected on others, and your computer set to POP management of emails, I would expect this behaviour.  POP or Post Office Protocol, is the older implementation of email services, and one of the actions is to download all emails, and delete them from the server, leaving the only copy on your computer. It is a relic from the days of small server space.  IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) manages all your emails on the server, and is designed to be accessed from multiple devices. When you action an email on one device, the change is reflected on the server, and communicated to the email clients of all other devices using that account. Thus read emails on your phone, show as read on your computer, and when you delete them, they disappear from both.

If you have set all your phone to IMAP, and your computer to POP, the computer downloads all the messages, and deletes them from the server. When the phone goes to check for messages, it finds all are deleted, so makes the files it has match, and deletes them all.

My suggestion is to make sure your email system is set to IMAP on both your computer and phone to see the behaviour you expect. Let us know the email client you have on your computer, so we can offer more advice.

[NFtoBC]

If your account is set up as IMAP, which causes actions on one device to be reflected on others, and your computer set to POP management of emails, I would expect this behaviour. POP or Post Office Protocol, is the older implementation of email services, and one of the actions is to download all emails, and delete them from the server, leaving the only copy on your computer. It is a relic from the days of small server space. IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) manages all your emails on the server, and is designed to be accessed from multiple devices. When you action an email on one device, the change is reflected on the server, and communicated to the email clients of all other devices using that account. Thus read emails on your phone, show as read on your computer, and when you delete them, they disappear from both.

If you have set all your phone to IMAP, and your computer to POP, the computer downloads all the messages, and deletes them from the server. When the phone goes to check for messages, it finds all are deleted, so makes the files it has match, and deletes them all.

My suggestion is to make sure your email system is set to IMAP on both your computer and phone to see the behaviour you expect. Let us know the email service you are using, and the email clients you have on your phone and computer, so we can offer more advice.

[NFtoBC]

If your account is set up as IMAP, which causes actions on one device to be reflected on others, and your computer set to POP management of emails, I would expect this behaviour.  POP or Post Office Protocol, is the older implementation of email services, and one of the actions is to download all emails, and delete them from the server, leaving the only copy on your computer. It is a relic from the days of small server space.  IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) manages all your emails on the server, and is designed to be accessed from multiple devices. When you action an email on one device, the change is reflected on the server, and communicated to the email clients of all other devices using that account. Thus read emails on your phone, show as read on your computer, and when you delete them, they disappear from both.

If you have set all your phone to IMAP, and your computer to POP, the computer downloads all the messages, and deletes them from the server. When the phone goes to check for messages, it finds all are deleted, so makes the files it has match, and deletes them all.

My suggestion is to make sure your email system is set to IMAP on both your computer and phone to see the behaviour you expect. Let us know  the email client you have on your computer, so we can offer more advice.

[J-]

I'll give that a try, thanks!

[Nighthawk]

@J- Be careful if you try to delete a POP account from your computer. It's very likely you'll lose all messages associated with it unless you have them backed up somewhere safe and/or moved to a folder not associated with that account. Any messages downloaded to the computer cannot be put back on the mail server so they won't appear anywhere else.

Depending on which version of Outlook you are using the steps to change the settings for the mail account and the way to back up the messages can differ.

[NFtoBC]

Usually, you can export messages, and later import them.

[Nighthawk]

That typically means the mail app on your computer is set up as POP3. POP3 at its default settings will download the emails and remove them from the server right away. Mine is set up the same but depending on the mail app you're using on the computer, it's usually possible to tell it to not delete the messages either at all or until after a certain amount of time passes (ie 30 days). Mine is set for 30 days for my non Gmail accounts.

Which program are you using for email on your computer? 🙂

[J-]

Outlook

[NFtoBC]

I have three times posted this now, and am having difficulty getting it to stick!

EDIT: Original post now appears in timeline.