Leaving Mail On Server

[sabermanX]

How do I set Windows Phone 8 mail app to leave mail it reads on the server?

 

[Sean Stanley]

Last I checked you could not. I've gotten in the habit of not deleting mail off my phone if I know another device that's needs to receive it (desktop, wife's phone, etc.) hasn't had a chance. Also, be aware, deleting it off primary mail server (i.e. Time Warner, etc.) will remove it from your phone. Works both ways.

 

[Loco5150]

Setup an pop account, opposed to imap. With pop account you can set it "keep email at server" when deleting from your phone.

 

[sabermanX]

I am using a pop account. Where is the "keep email at server" option in the phone's email client? I have set my laptop's email client (Outlook 2010) to leave mail for this account on the server for seven days. I need to do something similar in the Windows Phone 8's email client.

 

[Sean Stanley]

I'm talking POP accounts too. I've never seen the option to not delete mail off the server on Windows Phone. This option existed on Win Mobile but I think it was lost. If it's out there, I'd love to know where it is. Pretty sure I researched when I got my first WP7 and found it confirmed as not available on WP.

 

[sabermanX]

I don't want to synchronize with my pop account. I want to read it.

Can't find an email app in the store.

 

[Loco5150]

Ok I only assumed that pop would have this setting. Sounds really weird that its missing...

 

[pmhgeneral]

Ok I use outlook on my desktop PC, in there is a setting for save copy on server so when I get email on phone,I can read,delete it, then I can still open it as unread on PC read it then delete it. Or vice versa. I have a pop3 email address.

 

[MKairys]

IJW for me. I have an account on my phone to my Comcast POP3 server and if I read a message there, then fire up my desktop client (Outlook) the message is also available there (just tried it

 

[Sean Stanley]

But if you delete the email off your phone before downloading it on your desktop, I think you'll find it gone.

 

[foxbat121]

Only pop account has this issue because POP was invented almost 30 years ago when sync email on multiple devices are unheard of. IMAP, Exchange ActiveSync etc. are more suitable to today's mobile usage (push email and sync).

With POP, you normally have the choice of delete the mail on server after download it or leave on server so that other mail clients can read it too. But there is really no option of syncing. Not to mention the waste of battery and data to check the mailbox every so often.

Some ISPs like Cox are starting to offer IMAP mail box. This will be better than POP but still no push email on WP8 (Microsoft's fault). I simply setup my POP account to forward to my Outlook.com automatically. Then only sync emails from Outlook.com account.

 

[sabermanX]

Microsoft constently tries to ignore what their customers need. There was a lot of fuss over the fact that the Surface RT email client did not support pop and Microsoft lost some sales because of it. Finally, someone wrote an email client for the Surface RT that supported pop. I am hopefull that someone will do the same for Windows Phone 8.

Microsoft seems to think that everyone lives online and wants all of their devices and post offices synchronized. I don't think it is unreasonable to want to check your mail on a phone -- including reviewing attachments -- and then delete them to keep from filling up the limited memory available on a phone without losing the ability to archive them on aother device. Actually, you have to constantly delete mail on the phone just to be able to keep the list from getting two long. For some reason, in the message list screen each email talkes four lines -- a lot of real estate to give up to one message in a list of many. But if you delete them they will be removed from the server at the next synch and you've lost them.

 

[Loco5150]

Microsoft constently tries to ignore what their customers need. There was a lot of fuss over the fact that the Surface RT email client did not support pop and Microsoft lost some sales because of it. Finally, someone wrote an email client for the Surface RT that supported pop. I am hopefull that someone will do the same for Windows Phone 8.

Microsoft seems to think that everyone lives online and wants all of their devices and post offices synchronized. I don't think it is unreasonable to want to check your mail on a phone -- including reviewing attachments -- and then delete them to keep from filling up the limited memory available on a phone without losing the ability to archive them on aother device. Actually, you have to constantly delete mail on the phone just to be able to keep the list from getting two long. For some reason, in the message list screen each email talkes four lines -- a lot of real estate to give up to one message in a list of many. But if you delete them they will be removed from the server at the next synch and you've lost them.

I think your not thinking this 100% through.

I have 2 email accounts on my phone. Exchange account that has 1950 emails and Outlook.com that has 200 emails. These numbers I got from my desktop side, and I checked the last message from the phone and it is the same. For attachements we know that WP does not sync them if you havent separately wanted to sync that particular attachement. Then you can also manage attachements by deleting them. I have never done any managing of the email account sizes or attachements, Im checking this for the first time.

How much space is taken by my emails? 354,98mb. Im all about giving people choises, thats great, but seriously though, do you really need to delete email right away from your phone if the space taken is similar? You can also do a folder on your desktop called "archived" or something, move emails there and dont sync that folder to your phone. This way you keep your inbox clean in all devices and dont have to worry about your mailbox in your phone getting too big.

I dont know why POP accounts does not have this setting on WP, maybe it should. But then again, POP is the old way of pulling emails from the server and maybe it has ran its course, time to move on...

 

[sabermanX]

>Exchange account that has 1950 emails
Do you really need to scroll through 1950 emails to find the few that you really needed to save and be able to reference on your phone? When I am looking at the list of emails my phone only shows five at a time. To go through 1950 emails I would have to go through 290 pages.

> You can also do a folder on your desktop called "archived" or something, move emails there and dont sync that folder to your phone.
I am confused. My desktop has nothing to do with my phone and I want to keep it that way. I don't want to "sync" mail -- I want to read it. Outlook on my PC provides the ability to read mail and leave it on the server. It does not "sync" with the server -- it just reads mail. The only folder on the server is the Inbox.

 

[Loco5150]

>Exchange account that has 1950 emails
Do you really need to scroll through 1950 emails to find the few that you really needed to save and be able to reference on your phone? When I am looking at the list of emails my phone only shows five at a time. To go through 1950 emails I would have to go through 290 pages.

Well I guess this comes down to our personal ways how we use our emails. I generally need the most recent emails on my phone, or these are the ones I frequent with. Its rare when I need older emails on my phone, but when I do, I don’t scroll down 1950 emails… This would be IMO pretty stupid, I use search to narrow down and then scroll. I never had any problems looking up an email even if from 6 months ago on my phone. Max search time ever think has been about 8 seconds or something.

> You can also do a folder on your desktop called "archived" or something, move emails there and dont sync that folder to your phone.
I am confused. My desktop has nothing to do with my phone and I want to keep it that way. I don't want to "sync" mail -- I want to read it. Outlook on my PC provides the ability to read mail and leave it on the server. It does not "sync" with the server -- it just reads mail. The only folder on the server is the Inbox.

Now you have me confused. My Outlook syncs the folders or downloads the messages to device(s). Sync/download and view difference = Take your device (pc, phone, tablet, whatever) and go offline. If in offline your device still has these emails, they are in the device meaning they are downloaded or synced in to it. If you cannot see them when offline, that would mean you are only reading them from server. This would be more like reading them in your web browser.

As for having different folder where to store emails, I don’t know did you understand what I mean? You could create a new folder for archiving emails at your server. This way you wouldn’t have to delete the message and you wouldn’t have to have it on your phone either, because sub-folders on WP need separate selection to get synced down to the device.

I used POP also and was reluctant to change around 3 years ago. I read more about the differences vs IMAP. In short POP is downloading messages to devices and IMAP is syncing folders. So POP downloads a copy of the email to your every device and IMAP keeps every devices emails and folders the same. Disadvantages of POP are that in general the inboxes on server can get quite big (if not maintained properly) and when downloading messages to different devices gives the same message “unread” status every time, even if its read already on other device. On IMAP when you read a message from a device its marked "read" to all your devices, but also when you send a message it will be present in all devices or delete or whatever. In WP is optional to sync the sent folder, so you dont need to worry about the size if you dont need to have it in your phone. (BTW I have it synced, seems to have a months sent messages, this is of course included in the 354mb of emails)

I don’t know, to me it really feels you have a strange approach to handle your emails (no need to get in to this, it just feel like it to me, I might be wrong). Maybe the best option for you is to use your browser to only view messages on the server? Then you don’t need to sync/download or anything. I guess you can pin your inbox straight to your start screen…

 

[Loco5150]

I edited little about IMAP vs POP ways of handling emails. But if you want full infos, you should read about it. Like probably from here:

http://www.howtogeek.com/99423/

 

[MKairys]

But if you delete the email off your phone before downloading it on your desktop, I think you'll find it gone.

Nope, still there.

Outlook on the desktop has POP3 settings for "leave mail on server" and "delete from server when deleted from client". It appears that in the WP client the first is set on and the second is set off, and there is no option to change this (which is fine by me).

 

[sabermanX]

Nope, still there.

Nope it is not.

Just ran a very simple test. Sent the email account I use on the phone a test email. Read it from Outlook. Checked the server -- still there. Read it from the phone -- checked the server -- still there. Deleted it from the phone, sync'ed, check the server -- email gone. An email will be deleted from the server the first time the phone is sync'ed after it is deleted from the phone.

Found another unpleasent surprise. If I delete mail from the pop3 server and then sync the phone the mail is deleted from the phone. This has to be one of the stupidest design bugs I have seen in a long time.

 

[somuee]

I can't believe how painful email is on my WP (8). It doesn't matter how anyone THINKS I should be using my phone; I should be given options to configure it the way I want. I was able to 'delete only from phone' like 5 years ago on the old Blackberry :eck:

 

[sirglasgow]

Email on WP sucks! I encountered this problem as well. Also you have no ability to multi-select contacts when creating an email message. I used to have an HTC Inspire (android)...Wonderful phone and OS. I experimented with "upgrading" to WP...HATED IT! Returned the WP and reverted back to my old phone. When I actually upgraded to another phone, I went with another android device and didn't even consider another WP phone. Until these problems are addressed, I will NEVER again look to WP.