Deleting Emails (IMAP)

[frankos72]

I have always used pop in the past but switched to IMAP for better sync & longer battery life. I've learned through trial and error and some research on the web. Just in case you haven't figured it out, ADGtant is right. IMAP works best if all your clients are IMAP and not a hybrid with pop3. When using IMAP, messages are only "marked" for deletion when you "delete" them. They are not removed from the server until you do a "purge." You can purge from outlook in addition to your web interface.

Anyone here know how to get my pre to purge?

[SirIra]

I'm hoping someone can help me.
I have an email account that I am accessing using IMAP from both Outlook and the Pre.
When I delete an email from the Pre it is just gone. It is not in the trash folder on the IMAP server. I do have a trash folder on the server INBOX.Trash.
On the Pre in Preferences, the Default folders box says "Not yet available". In Login Settings, there is no Root Folder specified.
I would love it to move deleted mail to the trash folder. Any idea how to make that happen?

[jp99]

I've run across this as well, and contacted my email provider. This explanation tells why we get the crossed out messages, as we don't have all the options on our Pre IMAP client that other systems have.

Many IMAP clients allow you to configure them to handle deletions is one of several manners. For example, Thunderbird gives you three choices:

* Remove immediately -- a deleted message is removed from the message list display in the client. It is still on the Fastmail IMAP server (with a line through it, showing that a client requested deletion). There is no duplicate message created.
* Mark it as deleted -- a deleted message is marked as deleted (with a line through the message) in the client mailbox listing. It is still on the Fastmail IMAP server (with a line through it, showing that a client requested deletion). There is no duplicate message created.
* Move it to the Trash folder -- a deleted message is marked as deleted (with a line through the message) in the client mailbox listing. It is still on the Fastmail IMAP server (with a line through it, showing that a client requested deletion). A copy of the original message is placed in the Trash folder (and is not marked for deletion unless the user deletes this copy from the Trash folder).

There is often a method provided in the client to clean up those messages marked for deletion, such as the following in Thunderbird:

* Clean up (Expunge) Inbox on exit -- This permanently removes the messages marked for deletion (with a line though the message) from the Inbox on both the client and the Fastmail server. It is executed when exiting the client application. The Fastmail web interface also has an Action command to Purge IMAP deleted messages.

The reason that IMAP has these various message deletion features is to allow safe and flexible message deletion when using various client connections. For example, let's say you use both a mobile email client and a desktop email client. It might be handy to delete some messages on the mobile client, but not remove them from the server permanently until you have seen them using the desktop client. You might not even use a Trash folder.

If you don't move deleted message to Trash and don't use the IMAP marked for deletion (with a line) features, then if you make a mistake you can instantly delete one or more messages permanently.

[puzzlegal]

I have the opposite problem. I like to archive email on my home computer, but I don't want my Pre to be cluttered with all my email. So I am currently using IMAP at home, and POP3 of the gadget. This is working fine, except that checking email on the Pre is really slow and burns power. I would like to switch the Pre to do IMAP, for better performance, but then it seems that if I delete a note on the Pre, it's gone, and if my home computer hasn't copied it over to archives, yet, I could lose the email completely.

That's not acceptable. Is there any way I can use IMAP on the Pre _without_ having it delete stuff from the server? If not, I guess I just have to keep using POP3, but I'd really like to upgrade to IMAP.

Any news on whether the mail program has been enhanced to give us more control in version2?

[Cantaffordit]

Originally Posted by puzzlegal

I have the opposite problem. I like to archive email on my home computer, but I don't want my Pre to be cluttered with all my email. So I am currently using IMAP at home, and POP3 of the gadget. This is working fine, except that checking email on the Pre is really slow and burns power. I would like to switch the Pre to do IMAP, for better performance, but then it seems that if I delete a note on the Pre, it's gone, and if my home computer hasn't copied it over to archives, yet, I could lose the email completely.

That's not acceptable. Is there any way I can use IMAP on the Pre _without_ having it delete stuff from the server? If not, I guess I just have to keep using POP3, but I'd really like to upgrade to IMAP.

Any news on whether the mail program has been enhanced to give us more control in version2?

There should be a setting on the Pre that doesn't send deletions from the phone back to the server. I see it on my phone for POP3 but not IMAP, which seems backwards to me. Also, there may be a setting in your email account that will change that, too.

I'm using gmail with IMAP and I don't think deletions on the phone are also deleted on the server, but then again I am having other issues with gMail that may be causing that.

[puzzlegal]

Yes, there's a setting for POP3, which is why I'm using POP3.

I gather that IMAP can be configured in different ways, but if the Pre makes those options available, it's pretty well hidden.

I tested this with gmail (since my gmail account is sort of throwaway stuff) and when I delete gmail email on my Pre (which is accessed with IMAP) it definitely deletes the email from the server, and I can't find an option to turn that off. Thus my question.

I'm hoping someone says "there's a patch for that", or "if you go to this screen you can find the option", or something.

[COS777]

For Gmail, I have enabled one of the labs called "Advanced IMAP Controls" (although it may not be necessary, I've just always had it). I have it set to "Immediately expunge messages when I mark them deleted in IMAP". All messages are archived in the "All Mail" folder. The way it works functionally is that when I delete a message on my Pre or Thunderbird, it immediately deletes it from my inbox and removes it from all devices. Since the message is archived, I can go to my "All Mail" folder in Thunderbird, online or on my Pre and search for the message even after it has been deleted from my inbox.

There is also an option on Gmail (I think through the lab): "Do not automatically expunge messages" for those of you who this might help.

[puzzlegal]

So you make the selection on-line, and it applies to all your devices that talk to the server? That's interesting. It's not an ideal option* for me, but it might be good enough.


* if I delete something on the home computer I'd just as soon it be deleted from the server, but that's not a deal-breaker. I deelte everything on the server when it gets too old anyway.

[Cantaffordit]

Originally Posted by puzzlegal

Yes, there's a setting for POP3, which is why I'm using POP3.

I gather that IMAP can be configured in different ways, but if the Pre makes those options available, it's pretty well hidden.

I tested this with gmail (since my gmail account is sort of throwaway stuff) and when I delete gmail email on my Pre (which is accessed with IMAP) it definitely deletes the email from the server, and I can't find an option to turn that off. Thus my question.

I'm hoping someone says "there's a patch for that", or "if you go to this screen you can find the option", or something.

Is it deleting it, or just moving it from you in box to another folder?

[COS777]

That's correct, it is an online selection with Gmail. I suppose you could change the POP settings so that when you access a message with POP, it deletes it from the server. But it would do that with every message. I think if you want a message deleted on the server when you delete it on your computer, IMAP would work the best.

[puzzlegal]

Alas, I can't find an option like that on my email providers interface. There's just a box for "sync folders on login".

[COS777]

Do you have the option to forward email to your Gmail account?

My previous post may not make a lot of sense; I had your POP/IMAP settings backwards for your Computer/Pre.

[puzzlegal]

Originally Posted by Cantaffordit

Is it deleting it, or just moving it from you in box to another folder?

Well, it's actually moving it to the "trash" folder, but I don't want to have to keep track of what I need to fish out of the trash on a regular basis. I get a lot of mail. (perhaps 40-60 per day.)

Originally Posted by COS777

That's correct, it is an online selection with Gmail. I suppose you could change the POP settings so that when you access a message with POP, it deletes it from the server. But it would do that with every message. I think if you want a message deleted on the server when you delete it on your computer, IMAP would work the best.

It's easy to control the behavior with POP3. You might be confusing me with the original poster, my problem is that I want to AVOID deleting messages from the server, but don't want them cluttering up by Pre. So I'm looking for a way to delete on the Pre without deleting from the server, in IMAP.

[puzzlegal]

Originally Posted by COS777

Do you have the option to forward email to your Gmail account?

My previous post may not make a lot of sense; I had your POP/IMAP settings backwards for your Computer/Pre.

I could just use the Gmail account for everything, I suppose, but for various reasons I don't want to. I'm paying a third party $40/year for email service because that email service adds value over what I can get free, from services like gmail. So far, I'm quite happy with this provider, and hope to stick with them for a while.

[puzzlegal]

Originally Posted by COS777

. . . There is also an option on Gmail (I think through the lab): "Do not automatically expunge messages" for those of you who this might help.

Originally Posted by puzzlegal

Alas, I can't find an option like that on my email providers interface. There's just a box for "sync folders on login".

On the other hand, there is a decent users forum for my email provider. Maybe someone there can help me find a way to do that.

[COS777]

The only other idea I have is to have Gmail check your third party email via POP and have your Pre access your Gmail account while your computer accesses your third party directly. You'd run into a problem where things really aren't synced and every email would have to be read twice, so I doubt it would be useful to you.

I don't know of any solutions from the Pre side.

[puzzlegal]

Thanks anyway.

I'm generally frustrated with the limited options on this email program, and really miss the one I used on the Treo. If they have written a email client for Android it may help me decide to migrate there.

[verwon]

In the Pre settings for email, you can select where you want any deleted items to go.

I didn't like having it delete items in my actual Gmail account, so what I did was set the deleted items to go to my All Mail folder, rather than to the trash. That way, I could go in online, later, and decided what I wanted to archive and what was actual trash.

This was using it as IMAP, so you CAN change where the default actions send your mail, it doesn't have to go to the trash.

[ggendel]

For a list of advantages of IMAP over POP, see:

Internet Message Access Protocol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The POP protocol has evolved over many years and was the first attempt to deal with remote mail clients. Before POP, you had to access your email directly from files (which could be networked). Because there was only one place to store the email, any actions happened immediately. The original mailbox format was a single file per folder. Because of this, deleting was done by marking a message rather than removing it. When a new message came it, it "could" find a deleted message to replace with the new one, but most just tacked the new message at the end of the file. Eventually, the file had lots of deleted messages that took up a lot of bytes and slowed down things like searching through your emails. To remedy this, an "expunge" task was done to remove all the deleted messages.

Along came POP which started with a different approach... It would make a copy of your emails from the server and allowed you to work locally and then delete the messages from the server. This was fine if you only had one email client working remotely. However, this was a bad shortcoming when you had more than one email client. Additions to POP were added to support "leave the emails on the server", "delete from the server when I delete it locally", etc. options.

Post Office Protocol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When the volume of emails grew, many found having a local copy of the emails on every machine they used was becoming prohibitive. Thus IMAP was born. The premise is that the server has all the email and functionality like server-side searching capability was included. The email client doesn't need to know what format the mail is stored in on the server and there is more than the traditional mbox format used. The maildir format stores each email as a single file. This got rid of the waste from deleted messages, but complicates searching. It also allowed a mailbox to include folders, whereas the mbox format can't put a folder in a mailbox (since a mailbox is a file).

Bottom line is that you will see different ways of handling mail and mail folders depending upon the capabilities of the server. Some need "expunging" and some don't (basically the server just ignores the request).

Then there is the client capabilites. Some can delete immediately, some delete by moving to another folder such as Trash. IMAP has nothing to do with this other than do what the client tells it to do. Clients like Thunderbird are pretty flexible at letting the user set options to do this.

[puzzlegal]

Originally Posted by ggendel

Then there is the client capabilites. Some can delete immediately, some delete by moving to another folder such as Trash. IMAP has nothing to do with this other than do what the client tells it to do. Clients like Thunderbird are pretty flexible at letting the user set options to do this.

And as I've noted, the Pre client isn't very flexible, and there doesn't seem to be any straightforward way for me to enable IMAP for my primary email account without either

1) having my Pre cluttered with too much mail
or
2) having stuff deleted (or moved to the trash folder) on the server, and risking not having it downloaded properly onto my home computer, where I sort, store, and archive my email.

So despite all those advantages (some of which I'd appreicate) I don't think I can reasonably use it.

So, no patches. (I just checked) and no rumors of better flexibility on Web OS 2? Sigh.