My IMAP's gone POP

[Crazy Dave]

Disclaimer:- Limited Intellegence
Yesterday my iPad tablet stopped receiving emails with various messages asking me to check the settings. After resetting my password, it still didn't work. So, Apple support to the rescue, when all fails delete the account and reinstall. Big mistake. Over 400 old emails downloaded and my sub-folders including the Sent folder disappeared. Ever seen a grown man cry?
A 'chat' with BT support reveals that they have an 'outage' for some customers and I should wait for 24 hours.

However, my laptop and tablet reveal that I have a POP account but my iPhone has an IMAP account - all for the same email address. If I understand correctly, one cannot have sub-folders on a tablet using a POP account so I assume what I had before it went t*ts up was an IMAP account.

Is there anyone who can point this numpty in the right direction in words of one syllable? If so, I would be very grateful and perhaps stop sobbing.


Thanks

David

[Graham_of_Rainham]

Re: My IMAP's gone POP

If you originally set up your e-mail to download the messages, then once deleted from any folders they are lost. If you didn't set it up to download from the e-mail server, they will still be on the server.

Best of luck

[Naughty Nigel]

Re: My IMAP's gone POP

POP3 is the simplest form of email.

POP3 clients (such as your laptop, etc.) can only send and download emails.

However, you will find various options on your machines which determine the relationship between messages on your PC and those on the server. The usual options concern what happens to emails on the server when downloaded to your PC, and what happens when emails are permanently deleted.

The default option is for emails to remain on the mail server until permanently deleted from one or more client machines.

You can certainly have sub-folders if using POP3 on a PC, but I'm not so sure about a tablet.

Crucially, changes to emails on your computer are not synchronised with the mail server or other computers; so (for example) messages deleted on one machine are not deleted on other machines, and emails sent from one computer will not be seen on other machines unless specifically sent to them by copying yourself in.

IMAP provides some synchronisation between emails on different computers as well as synchronising calendars and contacts if using an email client such as MS Outlook.

However, if you use a Microsoft Exchange email server (typically cloud hosted these days) emails calendars, contacts and so forth are fully synchronised across all machines, including many smartphones. So if you flag an email for action on your phone or iPad it will also be flagged for action on your desktop. And if you delete a message on one machine it will be deleted from all of them, (although there is a way you can recover deleted messages using Outlook Online).

[blu-by-u]

Re: My IMAP's gone POP

That was one of the main reasons I moved to Web based mails. Like Google's Gmail, they give you 15gb of mail storage space. I can keep my mails there like forever..but of course not those security sensitive stuff, That I download and delete it off. But the beauty of this Web based mails, you can access it practically ever where that you can get internet.

[Crazy Dave]

Re: My IMAP's gone POP

Thank you all for your input. For me, it's a bit like the car, I don't want understand what goes on under the bonnet as long as it works.

I think that the safest thing to do is to pop down to our local independent computer shop, the guys there are really great.

David

[Daveart]

Re: My IMAP's gone POP

Hi on my android tablet and phone I have sub folders using Gmail app you can download any email using pop3 and have them in different folders too.
Also if I delete on say my pc they are also deleted on my tablet and phone I have full synchronization between all my devices. Oh the pc has outlook app on it win 10 pro even my contacts calendars web browsers up date each other even though I have different browsers, ie edge on pc chrome on tablet and fire fox on my phone, works great gets some setting up but ounce they start talking to each other its great.

[Adagio]

Re: My IMAP's gone POP

But the beauty of this Web based mails, you can access it practically ever where that you can get internet.

So how do I manage with a POP3 account on my PC, my iPad and my Android phone then? Because I do. BlueMail on Android allows the local creation of folders iPad Mail doesn't or at least I have failed to discover how.

In any event it is an unusual ISP that does does not provide something like Smartermail.