Gmail-app/Aquamail sent mail

[GekkeHenkie]

Hi Guys,

I'm fairly new at using Aquamail and I am generally very happy with it. Uptill now I only have one problem with the program, and I hope that you can shed some light on it...

I use Aquamail and the Gmail-app on my Android phone (HTC One M8s, Android version 6.0.1), using IMAP. I also retrieve my mail on my laptop with Outlook 2010, using POP3. My problem is that mail sent with Aquamail does not appear in Sent Items in Outlook. Mail sent with the Gmail-app does. Mail sent with either app appear in the Gmail webapp under Sent Mail (which obviously uses IMAP as well). My question is: What does Aquamail do differently than the Gmail-app? And how can I configure Aquamail to work the same way as the Gmail-app, and get my sent mail to show up in Outlook?

Please don't tell me to use IMAP in Outlook as well, as I want to have a local copy of my e-mail in a PST-file. I know I could make an local copy of an IMAP-folder in Outlook, but this requires a bit of extra work on my part and the Gmail-app shows it can work just fine without this.

Thanks for any replies!

btw. Pardon my English, I'm Dutch

[StR]

Hello!
First of all, your English is fine, you don't need to worry about it.

An important question is: what is your e-mail provider: is it Gmail, or something else? (Gmail server behavior is very different from the rest.)

Even more important question is: when you are saying that "Mail sent with Gmail-app does [appear in Sent Items in Outlook]", how is that possible? If Outllook is using POP3, it cannot sync/download ANY folder but Inbox.
So, there is some contradiction here.

Before us trying to guess the culprit(s) of your problem, could you please clarify these questions?

PS. Oops, I see that while I was writing, Paris Geek just posted exactly the same questions...

[GekkeHenkie]

- I use a Gmail-account, sorry for not mentioning that
- The mail sent with Gmail (either using the Android app or the web-interface), appears in my POP3 "Sent Items"-folder in Outlook. It does not sync 2-way, but the sent mail is downloaded from the Gmail server. So your statement that POP3 can only sync Inbox, is not correct. At least, that's how it works here...

[StR]

- I use a Gmail-account, sorry for not mentioning that
- The mail sent with Gmail (either using the Android app or the web-interface), appears in my POP3 "Sent Items"-folder in Outlook. It does not sync 2-way, but the sent mail is downloaded from the Gmail server. So your statement that POP3 can only sync Inbox, is not correct. At least, that's how it works here...

Sorry, but POP3 protocol supports downloading of only Inbox.
(You can read, e.g. RFC 1939 that defines POP3 protocol: http://www.rfc-base.org/txt/rfc-1939.txt )

The only way that I can see how your Outlook can fake that is by filtering messages from the Inbox into the "Sent" folder. See, e.g. description of that here:
https://www.msoutlook.info/question/download-pop3-sent-items
Did you do such a setup at some point?

For that to happen, the sent message should show up in the Inbox. That can happen if your Gmail app is configured to send a copy of the message to yourself. In that case, in Gmail app and in Gmail web interface you should be able to see that "sent" message in the Inbox.
Could you check that (especially in the Web interface)?
I.e. send a message from your Gmail app to an external e-mail address (not that same Gmail account). Right away, on your computer's browser, go to Gmail web interface (preferably before your Outlook connects) and see if that message is in Inbox.

(If that doesn't happen the only other alternative that I can imagine is that, maybe Gmail feeds "All Messages" label (folder) for POP3 connection instead of Inbox. I don't know, I've never used POP3 with Gmail.)

If you see that sent message in the Inbox, let your computer's Outlook connect to the server, and check if that message appeared in Sent on your computer.

If all that happens, it means that somehow you've had that scheme set up in the past.
In that case, if you want Aquamail to work the same way, you can enable in its configuration "Bcc to self".
For that: long-press on the account name in the account list view. ->  Options and folders -> Composing and sending -> BCC to self.

But, all this is really some sort of contortion. IMAP is a much more reliable and elegant solution for what you are trying to accomplish. I know you rejected that, - but despite the common myth, setting an email client on a computer to download and store locally all messages via IMAP is usually fairly easy. (I've done that with Thunderbird, but I am not using Outpook. [sic!])

[GekkeHenkie]

> Description of your settings in Outlook would help (screenshots of settings or description)

I did nothing special in Outlook 2010 to configure the POP3-account for Gmail, no manual configuration whatsoever. I added a new account, entered my name, username & password and let Outlook find the server settings for itself. What I did do is activate the POP-download setting in my Gmail-account (under Settings/Forwarding and POP/Imap), before I added the account in Outlook.

Sorry, but POP3 protocol supports downloading of only Inbox.

I believe you unconditionally , I'm only describing what happens on my pc.

The only way that I can see how your Outlook can fake that is by filtering messages from the Inbox into the "Sent" folder. See, e.g. description of that here:
-- URL deleted, apparently I'm a newbie who can't post links... --
Did you do such a setup at some point?

No, I never did anything like that. After adding the account in Outlook as described above, it just works. And through the years I've done several fresh installs, and it always works the same way, without any special configurations.

For that to happen, the sent message should show up in the Inbox. That can happen if your Gmail app is configured to send a copy of the message to yourself. In that case, in Gmail app and in Gmail web interface you should be able to see that "sent" message in the Inbox.
Could you check that (especially in the Web interface)?

No sent messages appear in Inbox at all. Messages sent with AquaMail or the Gmail-app both appear in Sent Messages in the Gmail-webinterface, messages sent with Outlook do not appear in the web interface (obviously). As said, the only difference is that the messages sent with AquaMail do not get downloaded to Outlook, where the messages sent with the Gmail-app do (and appear in Sent Items in Outlook).

But, all this is really some sort of contortion. IMAP is a much more reliable and elegant solution for what you are trying to accomplish. I know you rejected that, - but despite the common myth, setting an email client on a computer to download and store locally all messages via IMAP is usually fairly easy. (I've done that with Thunderbird, but I am not using Outpook. [sic!])

Of course I will try to find a solution by using IMAP with Outlook and maybe make a copy of the message to the PST-file automatically, when it turns out to be necessary (so I don't fully reject it ). What I am trying to understand is where the difference comes from. Two messages sent using IMAP by two different mail-apps. The appear in the webinterface in the same folder, and visibly everything looks exactly the same. Still, only one is downloaded using Outlook/POP3. Makes no sense to me, except that it could be that the Gmail-app/webinterface adds something to it's messages, which gets it to be handled differently.

[StR]

...
Two messages sent using IMAP by two different mail-apps. The appear in the webinterface in the same folder, and visibly everything looks exactly the same. Still, only one is downloaded using Outlook/POP3. Makes no sense to me, except that it could be that the Gmail-app/webinterface adds something to it's messages, which gets it to be handled differently.

GekkeHenkie: thank you for providing detailed answers to the questions.

Ok, I think I understand now the source of the difference that you observe in the quoted portion above.
That difference comes from some specific features (some might call them idiosyncrasies) of Gmail and Gmail POP3:
1. Gmail POP3 downloads All Messages (i.e. including those in Sent),- all as if they were in a single Inbox.
2. Gmail POP3 (by default, but that can be changed) downloads only those messages whose state is "unread" (i.e. not "Read").
3. (If I remember correctly, messages downloaded by a POP3 client are automatically marked read. But this is not important for our discussion here.)
4. [not a standard SMTP feature] All messages sent via Gmail's SMTP are automatically saved on the server in "Sent" folder(label).
5. [rather peculiar feature]  Gmail server marks read messages that are sent by a mail client via Gmail's SMTP, but does not mark that way messages sent from the WebInterface.
(Here is the post where I found that: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/gmail/LD7xm9IbGT4/zW4yV1mb9N0J )
The rationale for this is that if the mail client sent the message it already has it in "Sent" folder, while the messages sent from the webinterface wouldn't make it to a POP3 client.
And if the client is IMAP3, then it will sync the message in Sent, and the server will actually catch the duplication and eliminate it (so that you don't have doubles).

I suspect (I haven't read a confirmation to that, but it makes sense), that the same way Gmail does not mark read the messages sent by Gmail app (I am not even sure if they go via Gmail's SMTP or via its proprietary protocol).

So, what we have here is as follows:
a) A message sent from Gmail app: the "Sent" copy is not marked read and for that reason is downloaded by the POP3 client (desktop)
b) A message sent from the POP3 client (obviously, via Gmail SMTP) is marked as read. So, you don't get it back in your POP3 client (so, you rely on the locally saved copy - if you've configured that).
c) A message sent from Aquamail via Gmail SMTP  is marked as read. So, it is not downloaded by the POP3 client.

The mystery is solved.

P.S. Note that if all your e-mail clients (mobile and desktop) were using IMAP, you'd have a perfect synchronization of the folders you have on all of them.

[StR]

Paris Geek: I didn't test it myself. See the reference I posted in the previous message (and other postings in that thread).

I wonder if enabling POP3 in your Gmail account (I don't remember if it is enabled or disabled by default), - might affect this behavior.

I just tested that, - disabled IMAP and enabled POP... the messages are marked read. But maybe they are still downloaded by POP as unread?  I didn't test that...

Actually, - I apologize and must correct my previous description.
Quoting from the linked resource: "messages sent through SMTP are automatically marked as "already downloaded" " -- not read. So, while the effect is the same as I described earlier, and all the rest holds, the internals are slightly different.

[StR]

- sent messages are not donwloaded to "sent" folder in Outlook 2013, but in "Inbox". 

I forgot to address this issue.
I actually don't know why/how the OP's Outlook sorts the Sent messages, but I am guessing there might be something that the OP may have forgotten about (or didn't realize at some earlier point).
I've posted the link to one of the possible ways how the filtering could've been implemented.
Here is yet another one: http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/email/choosing-the-folder-to-save-a-sent-message-in/
Or, there might be some add-on like this one: http://www.pergenex.com/auto-mate/index.shtml?source=slipstick
...
I don't think that matters much at this point. We've established what the culprit for the observed difference.


And one more followup comment. Yet a different way of how one *might* be able to "emulate" the same behavior in Android is by setting there "Bcc to yourself". I wonder how Gmail would treat that message. Obviously, it will notice the duplication with the copy it saves to Sent. But now that messages should be in "true" Inbox. And Gmail might not mark it as "downloaded" for that reason.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Sorry but I still think that Outlook is set up using IMAP (or maybe ActiveSync if Google still provides that for Gmail) --

-- or else it's POP3 but only there is some sort of "BCC to self" going on.

Gmail automatically saves any sent messages independently of a mail app.

You can check this by sending a message from AquaMail -- and then it should be there in Gmail web mail.

And then if it is (as I expect it will be) -- AquaMail's job is finished, the rest is between Outlook and Gmail:

Mail apps don't sync with each other, they each sync with the mail server / service hosting your account.

[StR]

Kostya,
While I am not sure about the exact mechanism (for this particular user) how Outlook separates the "Sent" messages into the "Sent" folder if it is connecting via POP3. (I offered several possible options.)

However, these facts have been established by many people (see e.g. the link I provided earlier in this thread):
1. Gmail via POP3 also provides messages from Sent (within what is served as "Inbox" -- I personally suspect it is not Inbox but rather "All Mail" that Gmail servers via POP3 [minus the messages that Gmail marks as "previously downloaded"]).

2. Gmail marks the "Sent" messages that went through its SMTP server as "previously downloaded", and doesn't do that with those sent from the Web Interface.
I suspect the same situation is with Gmail app (i.e. messages sent from it are not marked as "previously downloaded").

[Kostya Vasilyev]

@StR - could be that too. Switching to IMAP is the best way to access same account from multiple devices, but ultimately it's up to the user.

But since POP3 does not have any capability for AquaMail or any other app to upload sent messages (which isn't necessary anyway because Gmail's SMTP does this automatically) -- there is nothing here I could change.