# Android e-mail re-downloads deleted mail unless it has been read



## Riverglen (Aug 29, 2006)

I am accessing my e-mail account (on Roadrunner, provided by my ISP) from several machines. Two machines dual boot Windows 7 or Ubuntu and access the account with Thunderbird, and my wife accesses the account from an iPad. Now we have two new smartphones, running Android 4.4.2. From the phones we access the account with the Motorola default app, which identifies itself as just "Email".

It seems that the Android e-mail app is kind of dumb. On both phones I have the account setting set to leave e-mail on the server (as opposed to delete when deleted from the inbox.) My problem is that I want to be free to delete mail that is of no interest to me, without having to worry whether my wife has read it from one of the other devices, and vice versa. But unless I open each message to mark it as read, the Android e-mail app will download it again even if I have deleted it from the trash folder. There doesn't seem to be a way to keep unwanted mail out of the phone unless it has been opened on that phone. This is a nuisance since I like to keep clutter off of my machines/phones. If I delete something, I don't want to see it again on that machine, regardless of whether I've actually read it.

In Thunderbird, I can set the account to retain mail on the server for a specified period, which starts when a message has been downloaded by any device. Once it has been read, a message is still available for download on one of the other devices, for a few days. But it won't be re-downloaded to the same machine again, regardless of whether it has been read, sent to the trash, or deleted altogether.

So, is there a smarter e-mail client out there that does a better job of "housekeeping" ?


----------



## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

Sounds like you are using POP instead of IMAP for your email configuration on some if not all your devices. Switching all the accounts to IMAP makes handling email on multiple devices much easier.


----------



## Riverglen (Aug 29, 2006)

Well, you're right. I'm not at all familiar with the relative merits of one protocol vs. the other, but more to the point, I don't believe that Roadrunner supports IMAP accounts. But I may be wrong. I've never looked into the possibility of using IMAP.


----------



## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

The advantage of IMAP is that changes(deletions, moves, reads, all folder structure) gets duplicated to all devices that are also setup with IMAP. POP on the other doesn't know about anything that happens anywhere else, if the mail is in the inbox it gets download to every device and all other folders are not synced at all.

It does appear IMAP is supported by RR/TimeWarner: http://www.timewarnercable.com/en/r...lacco/incoming-outgoing-server-addresses.html


----------



## Riverglen (Aug 29, 2006)

Prompted by your suggestion, I did a little research on my ISP site and found that they do, in fact support IMAP. But I also found the following capsule description of the difference.

POP

Each of your email clients keep independent copies of mail downloaded from a server. Because messages can be deleted on a server by one client, other clients may not get copies of some messages.


IMAP

All of your email clients use one mailbox -- the one on the server. If a message is deleted or moved on one client, other clients will see the same action, though there may be a time delay. This means that no matter how many clients you use, all of the email clients see the same view of the mailbox. This is good for smartphone users because the phone, desktop at home, and webmail from the office all have the same view of the mailbox.

Based on that information, I believe that POP comes much closer to doing what I want. In short, I explicitly WANT each device to receive it's own copy, regardless of whether it has been downloaded, read, or deleted from any of the other devices. I want to have the ability to delete stuff that is only of interest to my wife, who likely will read it on her iPad. If she doesn't keep the clutter of unwanted stuff cleaned up, I don't want to have it hanging around cluttering up my inbox. I should also mention that all of my e-mail clients are configured to leave downloaded messages on the server. The Thunderbird clients leave messages for 5 days, the phones can only be configured to leave 'em or delete 'em. So, I leave 'em.

But, I also want to be able to delete anything I receive, read or unread, and have it stay deleted. As it happens, I received a piece of junk mail last evening, just after I made my initial post here. So, I opened the message to ensure it was marked as read, deleted it to the trash folder, and then opened the trash folder and deleted it from there. Then, I returned to the in box, and refreshed it from the server an the junk was baaaaack! Exactly what I am trying to aviod. Assuming that the server doesn't keep track of which device(s) are getting the download (a valid assumption?), I conclude that the phone isn't keeping track of what has been downloaded either. I don't have any of these problems when accessing the account from anywhere else, although I'm not completely sure of how the iPad is handling all this. I hardely ever touch the thing.


----------



## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

Oh ok, I misunderstood. 

Ok, so the problem is with the phone. Maybe just delete the account and set it back up as it should be able to delete messages and not re-download them, I have a POP account setup on my Android device and it works correctly. Make sure that when you set it back up you select POP as many mobile devices want to use IMAP. 

I haven't use a Motorola phone so I'm not sure if it has it's own mail app or if it just uses the generic Android mail app.


----------



## Riverglen (Aug 29, 2006)

Well, I deleted and rebuilt the account on the phone. Did it manually, as opposed to whatever the assisted procedure is, and I and 100% sure that I set it up as a POP account this time.

Verified that I can send and receive from the account. But when I read and then deleted the received messages, followed by deleting them from the trash folder, I got them back in the in-box as soon as I refreshed it. And despite my having read the messages before deleting them, when they turn up the second time, they show as unread.

Based on the remark in the Roadrunner help info to the effect that "there may be some delay" before IMAP clients will be synced, I'm wondering whether I'm performing my little experiments too quickly. I guess I should try the same test but after reading them, deleting them and then emptying the trash, I should wait a while before peeking back in the in-box.

I'll let you know what happens.


----------



## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

There shouldn't be a delay for POP. None for me on my HTC. However I never delete from the trash either, I just let the phone clear messages after 7 days.

However since it's android you do have the option of using another email client, you may want to try K-9: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fsck.k9


----------



## Riverglen (Aug 29, 2006)

At this point, all I'm sure of is that I don't know what the heck is going on. I received a couple of messages, read and sent them all to trash, and deleted a couple from the trash folder. They didn't come back (so far). I guess I'll just have to pay better attention to what is and isn't happening.

I may take your suggestion an look at an alternative e-mail client. I am not sure whether the app I'm using is the Android generic default or something that came from Motorola. I can't find any sort of identifying info, other than a version number, so I'm guessing it is stock Android. 

And, I wasn't aware that trashed messages would age out of the Trash folder. Looked for and didn't find any sort of setting that would allow me to control the hold time.


----------

