Duplicate emails on android phone - HELP (or im going back to Blackberry!)

[BlueSkySunnyDay]

So after a big faff I have the emails coming into the phone but every time I delete them they just download again from the ISPs server.

We are on the brink of giving the phone to DS and sticking to the blackberry (which does the job brilliantly) I think that used to give us the option to "delete from server" too.

Phone is a Samsung x-cover and im downloading from Plusnet using IMAP rather than POP3

[NetworkGuy]

IMAP is very different from POP3.

With POP3, it is usual to delete after downloading. However, that gives a problem if you want to download in more than one place (eg phone and laptop). Some mail clients allow you to "leave mail on server" or "leave mail on server for X days" (eg 5 days) so it gives you chance to download on laptop as well as mobile. However, some clients were poor at deleting (Microsoft Outlook Express, for example).

IMAP is very, very, different. IMAP deliberately does not download messages unless you wish to (so it is ideal in a situation where someone sends you 40 MB of photos, but you are away and on your mobile. You would not want to download them (both time consuming and costly if abroad, but impossible to avoid using POP3, to get to other mail items)

You can see the 'header' (subject, who it's from) without needing to download the message, so could skip over some mail and only download important mail.

IMAP has the facility to mark messages for deletion and then act on it (sending a delete command to your ISP). If you view a message and delete it locally, it is designed to still be on the server...

If you can, delete your mail account and recreate it using POP3, and it should work as you expect. However, in the long run, I'd really suggest moving away from an ISP mail account altogether so you can switch ISP when some better deal comes along. Worthwhile as a backup, but if you get regular mail (eg daily messages from Ebay, messages about your monthly bills and so on), how many problems are you storing up by using an ISP mail address, compared with say Hotmail (live.co.uk) or Google Mail (gmail.com) ?

HTH

[BlueSkySunnyDay]

I agree my ideal choice would be to use an ISP free address but we have used this address for over a decade, its the one all our clients know and its not unusual for them to come back with work 5 years later having moved house - which is why we ruled that out. I am mulling over how to make it work as a long term plan.

So what I see on the phone is just the title,not the message?

I have the server set up to "leave for 14 days" The issue was that once DH has seen the title, if its not important he wanted to take it off of the list on the phone, its purely to keep in touch in case clients have problems while we are away. H is not technical and I was trying to keep it simple

We can access webmail actually on the Plusnet server and I DID get round it by deleting messages from there but that needs my ongoing input though as H wouldnt do that plus WIFI access (often patchy in Cornwall for example) Am I right in thinking though that once deleted from the server it will not download to the laptop if the next time we switch it on is a week later?

Wifi is only switched on at all when we need it as the phone battery life is crap! He has a Data option which pulls in the emails but seems to stop everything else working.

Makes you realise how easy the Blackberry is to use!

[NetworkGuy]

With IMAP, it will depend on your settings whether the full message is downloaded at the time you ask to view it (ie touching a specific mail message) or has already been downloaded. I guess that is possibly outside your control (will depend which mail client you use).

If the Blackberry is easier and this is for business mail then switch back. I'd be inclined to move completely over to something like Google Mail. You could set it up to 'pull in' your mail from Plus.Net, meanwhile, if you register your own domain (eg a .co.uk or .com) you could send out all future mail messages with a mail address of @ and whenever you spot someone who has used your Plus.Net mail address, send them a polite note asking them to correct their address book and use your new e-mail address.

I think you can give a 'label' (so you could mark new mail from Plus.Net mailbox as PlusNet and then you'd know who used the PN mail address and needed to be told of your new mail address).

If you pulled the mail into GMail, then (a) your Plus.Net mailbox would be kept empty anyway, (b) you'd be able to view mail on any Android phone or via a web browser, and (c) by 'Archiving' a message it would not be shown when viewing the 'Inbox' on GMail, but would still be held (so the mobile would not show it again, unless choosing to see 'All Mail' but the laptop and web browser would still be able to access it).

As for the phone having poor battery life, it surely just needs a mobile charger / mains charger and remembering to put it on charge as often as possible :)

Yes, regarding 'removed from server means unable to download to laptop a week later'. I use several Android phones (Galaxy Ace, Europa, Mini, Huawei and a couple of Sony Xperia Tipo). Some have 1 or 2 GMail accounts, while one (the Galaxy Mini) has about 5 GMail accounts. They are highlighted when they have not been read so I hardly ever delete any (have anything up to 100,000 unread messages across all my mail accounts) but the Android mail will only show the last 2-4 days anyway, so as long as I take a look once or twice a day, I see anything important.

I will usually mark (with a 'star') something I need to deal with later, and sometimes archive (hide from the inbox) something I've read and consider low importance, so it won't be someting I look at again on my phone. If something is important (sent to 'support@mydomainname') it goes to several GMail accounts and my Orange mail box (so one of my mobile phones will bleep as it gets a text alert whenever there is new e-mail sent).

I know some clients hate having a duplicate mail message, but personally, I'd prefer to see it in more than one place (and be able to respond to a client) than to not see it for several hours, which is why I have special treatment for some mail over all the rest, to the extent of sending it to multiple mailboxes, just in case!