Home Forums Networks & Cross-Platform Networking Different email clients on different Macs

This is not a problem, it's just a bit odd. I don't worry about it, I work around it. I'm only wondering why.....

(I also don't know how much to tell without boring you all senseless, sorry!)

On my (beloved) iMac running OSX, I use Mail to send/receive emails. On my (beloved) old G4 running OS9, I use Outlook Express to send/receive emails. I use both, for operational reasons, it works for me.......excepting one little detail.

On the iMac/Mail, click on Get Mail and down it all comes AND gets left on my business-email's-server too. I have to go in there to delete stuff daily. (We're talking 100s of them.)

On the G4/Outlook Express, click on Get Mail and down it all comes and gets deleted off the server instantly.

I only have one business email provider (and I pay them for this service).

I think I'd like the iMac's Mail prog to delete off the server too - it would save me hours of boring boring housekeeping off their servers every time I can find the energy to do it!

It's a settings thing somewhere, right?

ps. If anyone really wants to know why I use both, I'll say, but that leads to more chit-chat about networking which also works fine with the current oldMac/newMac set-up.

Thanks

Using multiple machines to fetch mail from a POP account is dangerous. There's an option in most email readers to leave email on the mailserver for x days and then delete any messages it finds on the server that have been on your computer for at least that long, or are at least that many days old. There's also sometimes an option to remove messages you deleted on your machine immediately from the mailserver on next fetch.

Problem is, if you get mail from one for several days or a week straight, and then try to get mail on the other, it may have already deleted some new messages due to age before your 2nd machine gets a chance.

Some people configure their email apps to delete immediately after receiving in messages. That makes it a lot worse for the other computer because it misses a lot of mail.

If you don't want this behavior, you really need to use IMAP. IMAP keeps a copy of all messages on the server unless you tell it otherwise or move them to a local mail folder. IMAP has the danger though of overflowing your mailserver capacity limit if you frequently receive email attachments, or if you just don't delete email often. (or forget to empty the IMAP's trashcan! we see that a lot)

If your goal is to have Mail delete messages at once, you can do that.

Go to Mail->Preferences. Click Accounts. Click on the account and hit the Advanced tab. Check the box marked "Remove copy from server after retrieving a message"

Virtual1, thank you for your reply.

It's only me on both machines, no-one else uses them. I only use the old Mac and Outlook Express under specific situations which only arise once a week for our business: the rest of the week the iMac and Mail does the day-to-day emailing traffic.

Tacit, thank you! You got me thinking, so I just went over to the G4 and rummaged around Outlook Express. Sure enough, when I finally found it, under my account I had NOT ticked the box and all downloads were immediately deleted off the server. That's where the pesky little blighter was. Thank you.

I've now re-set that, so no emails are deleted off the server automatically.

End of conundrum. Case solved. Another Hi-Five for MacFixit Fine Tuned Mac.