• After more than 15 years covering everything Apple, it’s with a heavy heart we announce that we will no longer be publishing new content on iMore and the iMore forums will be closing as of November 1st, 2024.

delete email from pop account

mnl

Member
Jan 14, 2012
10
0
0
Visit site
hi. I recently switched from a blackberry to an iPhone 4 S and the action to delete e-mails on the iPhone is inconsistent. I have the iphone mail settings arranged so that deleting mails from my inbox deletes them from the POP server; my objective is to delete multiple e-mails using the edit function on the iphone so they do not show up in my pop-based e-mail in my desktop Outlook.

sometimes deleting the mails does remove them from the mailbox on the server and other times it does not. This is particularly annoying when I delete a hundred junk e-mails and then they come into my Outlook anyway.

Has anyone seen this behavior and can you recommend something for me to deal with it please?

Thanks.
 

Alli

Well-known member
Apr 28, 2009
10,927
370
0
Visit site
With pop3 you have to connect to your server to complete the action. So you must first delete the email on your iPhone and then connect to your server by manually polling for email to physically delete them from the server.

It would be a whole lot easier to use this as the perfect excuse to switch to IMAP or Exchange.
 

mnl

Member
Jan 14, 2012
10
0
0
Visit site
hi thank you for your response. I am going to move away from pop to, probably, Google apps but in the meantime I have this pop problem. My mechanics are that I download the mail, press edit, designate the e-mails I want to delete, and then press the delete button. Is it necessary for me to clear out all of my e-mails before I download and delete? If I understand you properly, that's what I have to do but the updating of the emails on the phone is essentially the same thing.

the weird thing is that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And, by the way, I have the same issue with my iPad. am i missing something?
 

Alli

Well-known member
Apr 28, 2009
10,927
370
0
Visit site
After you press the delete button, you have to sync to the server again - hit the refresh button, or poll for new email. It's a pop3 issue, not an iOS issue.
 

takeshi

Well-known member
Feb 10, 2011
293
17
0
Visit site
^ This. The POP server isn't updated until the next time your device's mail app polls the server. You're seing "inconsistent" (they're not inconsistent if you think it through) results for that reason. Sometimes the server is polled before you get to Outlook, sometime's it's not.
 

Latest posts

Trending Posts

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
262,083
Messages
1,773,910
Members
441,389
Latest member
Jethro7