# Please help: email on i-devices



## Phyrebrat (Oct 15, 2014)

Hello, I'm hoping any Apple/iOS experts can help me with this one - I've had a look online and want to avoid using the Mac forums which are incredibly unpleasant...

I use an iPad, iPhone and my computer is an iMac. I moved over to Apple in 2010 as I was sick of M$ unreliablity and being forced to buy new hardware/upgrade so regularly.

Generally I'm v pleased with the way these devices all work together seamlessly but I have never been able to get my email to work the way I want it to:

If I download my email on my iPhone, when I fire up my Mac later on, only some of the messages will download to it. If I download them to my iPad first (which is rare), they never appear on my Mac. Additionally, any 'important' emails - esp ones with attachments - will not download on my Mac after they've gone onto my iPhone.

This is a problem for me as I'm a creature of habit and need those emails on my Mac so I can reply to them, open embedded links, or file attachments. 

My ISP is Virgin.

Does anyone know why this seemingly arbitrary state of affairs is occurring?
Thanks

pH


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## Ray McCarthy (Oct 15, 2014)

It's your POP3 settings. Unless Virgin offers IMAP. Nothing to do with apple iThings. If you are using POP3, either the messages are deleted from the server when you read them, or you change your email client to "Leave messages on Server". Some final device has to remove them or the mail box gets full. Or if there is a Web Interface to the Virgin mail you can delete the messages after all devices have read them.
There are more complex solutions.

Anyway, it's email settings, and EVERYONE with multiple things using same mail address has this issue.

If the Mac is where you want all email stored, have it set "Remove mail from Server" under POP3 mailbox/server settings and set every other thing in its settings  to "Leave mail on Server"

A variation where you want copies kept of ALL email on two things is to have a 2nd "secret" mailbox you don't tell anyone about and set up automatic forwarding to it.


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## Phyrebrat (Oct 17, 2014)

Thank you Ray! I will follow this to the letter when I finish work tomorrow. 

Very helpful, thanks.

pH


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