[ADGrant]

I don't, Pre should not delete them from server until I send them to trash, like any POP application. Right now, it does that and also deletes the emails from the phone... making me lose everything.

EDIT: I see now what is wrong. If I send an email to my Pre, it will get it and I can read it fine. If I close the window and open it again, it will resync and delete all existing mail into all folders. If it does not resync, the mail will stay into my Pre. The problem is that Pre will resync by default when you open a mail box. Even if you set it on manual sync, it will erase all existing mail, when you resync again, at your convenience. No resync, no new emails. Resync, all emails deleted. Nice.

For now, I don't have the choice but to use IMAP.

POP3 clients normally delete mail from the server when they fetch it. If you want to use a smartphone and a desktop email client to read and organize your email, POP3 is not the right protocol. You are lucky that your email provider supports IMAP, some don't (I had to switch to a new email provider to get IMAP).

You really need to read the following thread if you don't understand why IMAP is the correct protocol (and POP3 is a bad idea, obsolete, crappy etc).

http://discussion.treocentral.com/pa...p-vs-pop3.html

The important points are as follows:

1. IMAP is far, far faster than POP3 and uses far less data; this is particularly true for large mailboxes. For example, just determining which messages need to be downloaded and/or deleted in a POP3 mailbox with 1000 messages would typically require 100k of data to be transferred; with IMAP, this would be closer to 8K. Also, loading, say the first 5 lines of an email would typically take 5x or more as much data as with IMAP. Doing a "load more" of a POP3 message requires 1) a full sync - the part that takes 100k for a 1000 message mailbox, plus 2) reloading everything in the message from prior to the "load more". With IMAP, only the "more" part gets loaded; this is a HUGE savings.

2. IMAP is far, far more efficient at dealing with attachments. To even determine whether attachments exist, the entire message must be loaded (a horrible example would be the case of a 1k attachment following a 1MB attachment; in POP3, you wouldn't even know the 1k attachment existed until reading the entire 1MB attachment). In IMAP, attachments are known completely at the outset and each can be loaded independently.

3. IMAP keeps state information on messages - replied, seen, flagged; none of this is possible on POP3. Read a message on your Treo and it appears read in Outlook back at home, or in the office.

4. IMAP allows unlimited nested folders that appear on every client; in POP3, folders are local - messages "filed" in this way on one device can't be seen on any other device.

5. IMAP allows true push operation; POP3 does not. (Most IMAP servers support this, including AOL/AIM)

6. IMAP allows mailboxes to be completely sync'ed, so that changes made on one device are reflected on the other; no more worries about "where" a message lives (this is akin to webmail). With POP3, it's hard to know whether a message read on one device will even be available to another device (especially with Gmail!).

7. IMAP allows sent mail to be uploaded back to the server, so you can keep your sent mail in one place; POP has no such facility.

[squeff]

Plus, I never liked how the folders are displayed in IMAP. If you know a way to get rid of the [Gmail] folder and display all dirs like POP, I will switch to IMAP.

Not sure I understand what you get with POP that's different from IMAP. However, maybe this will help:

When in the e-mail app, you should see a "favorites" section, as well as a "Gmail" section. Open the "Gmail" section by tapping the arrow. Inside, there will be: Inbox and Outbox (these are Pre folders that get mapped to Gmail folders, more on this later), as well as [Gmail] and its subfolders (All, Drafts, Sent, Spam, Starred, Trash), and then each of your GMail labels (GMail doesn't actually do folders).

For those folders you care about, tap the star until it turns yellow.

Then, close the Gmail section by tapping the arrow. Your folders will now appear in the Favorites area. No need to see the [Gmail] heading.

If, for some reason, Inbox/Outbox/Trash aren't mapped corrected, you can: Preferences & Accounts, Gmail, scroll to "Default Folders" and make whatever changes are needed.

I'm guessing that you don't like using Favorites (because you want to see only one accounts folders at a time) and you don't like the fact that GMail has so many "system" folders? Is that it?

Anyway, I see from another post you've made that you figured out why this is happening. Now that you mention it, this makes sense. At least within the Pre's paradigm. Specifically, the Pre's e-mail client is based on the idea of syncing. POP and syncing do not go well together. Palm clearly was trying sort hard to make the new paradigm work that they didn't realize it wouldn't work well with the "old" way of doing things (POP). Maybe they will fix this in a future OS release.

Ultimately, however, this is one of the benefits or flaws (depending on your perspective) of the cloud-based approach used by the Pre. Things sync (IMAP), they do not download (POP).

Ultimately, some will find that this new approach to things does not work for them. That may be the case for you. In which case, a device that well supports POP would be a better way to go.

I've said this elsewhere: if you're a serious e-mail user, a Blackberry is a much better way to go.

[ADGrant]

Not sure I understand what you get with POP that's different from IMAP. However, maybe this will help:

...

I've said this elsewhere: if you're a serious e-mail user, a Blackberry is a much better way to go.

Its more a case of what you don't get with POP, see my post above.

BTW Blackberries don't support IMAP particularly well though the situation has improved with gmail lately. They work best with BES (which is expensive). If you are using IMAP with IDLE support, the Pre client isn't bad but Chattermail on PalmOS was much better.

[rweiss]

Thank you both!!!

I'm not going crazy.

I too struggled with this exact problem. So, today, I finally switched to imap and found it to work just fine. I was used to pop, but now that I have started to us imap, I find it both easy and with features which allow me to access everything from multiple computers. I have been using pop since the earliest versions of Eudora, but glad I changed.