Here we go again - deleting emails on a POP3 server

[truenorth]

I'm not a believer of keeping emails on an internet server.  I use an ISP that runs POP3/SMTP servers very well.  I use Thunderbird to download my email to my PC and delete these messages from the server.  I've created a second POP3 account to service my phone with AquaMail.  When an email enters my primary POP3 account, I immediately copy it over to this secondary account for AquaMail to get it. I don't want all my mail on my phone, so the secondary POP3 account has filters that remove things I don't want on my handheld.

So, what I want AquaMail to do is delete messages on the POP3 server after downloading them.  The secondary POP3 account is only for AquaMail to use. 

Then I have all my mail on my desktop PC (backed up with Mozy), the phone has the mail I want it to have, and nothing is on any internet server. Perfect.

This seems to be a regular recurring topic here, and I was wondering if AquaMail will operate in this way.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

That's not really a recurring topic -- you're probably thinking about "how to delete messages in the app without deleting them from the mail server" (which is recurring).

There is no "delete after downloading" -- it's intentional, and I have no plans to change it.

I don't feel that a mobile device is the right place to serve as the "master copy" for email messages. In your case, you have the originals in your main account, but if you consider just one account, the one Aqua will be working with, then it starts to look different.

I would suggest having a script of some sort that would delete old messages from the server (say, past 7 days) -- and set Aqua to sync those deletions (it's per account under "options and folders" -> "account options"... and is disabled by default for POP3).

[truenorth]

I agree with your logic if AquaMail is the only client.  In my case it's quite different.

Can AquaMail just download new messages from the POP3 server, but not attempt to sync with it.  I can write a script to clean off the POP3 account, but I want those message to remain in AquaMail always.  Even if they're not in the POP3 mailbox.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

>> I agree with your logic if AquaMail is the only client.  In my case it's quite different.

I knew you would agree -- and addressed that too.

>> Can AquaMail just download new messages from the POP3 server, but not attempt to sync with it

Um, sorry, you lost me there -- what does "download but not sync" mean?

[reidler]

Hi.  I just downloaded the Aqua-Mail app to my galaxy s3.  I am amazed at all the options for customization and it's capabilities.  I had a question and searched the forums and found this thread which is what I was looking for.  I, too, have this same problem.  I would like the POP3 client to tell my server to delete the emails after downloading them to my phone.  I actually also have a method that saves all the messages first and then allows my PC to download my emails and my cell phone. The reason I have is that if I do not delete them from the server then every time the POP3 from Aqua-Mail syncs with the server the server has to send a long list of emails to Aqua-mail. A-M will figure out and only download the new messages but there is a lot of data interaction in just passing through the email POP3 list.  This 1. takes a lot of time and 2. uses a lot of cell phone data.  If the emails are deleted from the server then the downloads would be much faster since only a short list of new emails will be sent and the data bytes will be much much much less. Saving my data plan costs.  May I please ask that you add another option that will delete emails from the server after being downloaded by Aqua-Mail?  Thank you for your consideration.  Eli

[Kostya Vasilyev]

>> I would like the POP3 client to tell my server to delete the emails after downloading them to my phone

Not clear which client you mean -- desktop or Aqua -- but please don't make your life more complicated.

>> if I do not delete them from the server then every time the POP3 from Aqua-Mail syncs with the server the server has to send a long list of emails to Aqua-mail

Not so.

>> delete emails from the server after being downloaded by Aqua-Mail

Absolutely not.

[reidler]

Yes, I did mean the Aqua pop3 client.  I actually wrote the POP3 server on our system. So I can see the logs of the sessions between a POP3 client and our server.  We were sending lists of emails - the same list over and over every time Aqua made a POP3 request.  Aqua issues a UIDL request.  We send the list of the message IDs and Aqua goes through that list and determines if it already retrieved that message and skips it if it did or downloads it if id didn't.

So I added something to my server program to flag when an email was download by AQUA and remove it from the list. (Basically deleting it). Now once an email was sent to AQUA then on the next POP3 request from aqua my server will only send a list of new emails that have come in since the last request and not send the list of emails that were already downloaded. The list is now very efficient with no wasted data being sent back and forth.   And it is very fast.  If no new messages arrived a session lasts one second.

But I did have a problem.  I downloaded hundreds of emails to Aqua last night.  This morning for about 5 minutes when I looked at Aqua it showed a number of emails in the folder like 20/4 and only very few emails were there! I took a look a few minutes later and they were all back and the numbers were correct again.  Why did this happen?   Thanks. Eli

[mikeone]

I second (absolutely, firmly) Kosty's choice: AquaMail should not delete messages on the server after downloading or synhronizing them. TOO dangerous to everyone.

Please take a (little) time to read the following. The user and myself have spent several hours to test and understand what happened, since 1000 messages had been destroyed due to an app deleting messages on server after downloading them (this app is NOT AquaMail).
http://www.aqua-mail.com/forum/index.php?topic=2980.msg13747#msg13747

I'm also completely agree with Kostya's choice.

[kenhlaw]

I'm a newbie to the forum but a long-time AquaMail user.  Kostya, do you agree with Paris Geek that AquaMail does not delete messages from the Inbox when they are deleted from the server?  I posted in the General Discussion area about this but this thread seems to be relevant.  I have emails disappear from my Inbox (or fail to load) once they are about 10 days old (it has done this from the start).  I'm trying to find out why this happens and I seem to read conflicting information about it in the forum.  I am using the Comcast POP3 server. I'm running on a Samsung S5 Android 4.4.4.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

>> Kostya, do you agree with Paris Geek

No I don't agree with that, because Paris Geek wrote:

>> AquaMail should not delete messages on the server after downloading or synhronizing them

And you're asking me to confirm "the other way around":

>> that AquaMail does not delete messages from the Inbox when they are deleted from the server

For your Comcast related questions, I'm going to continue answering in that topic, not here.