prevent email deletion

[johnconstable]

I have an android phone and two laptops configured with email on IMAP.

I want to delete the emails from my phone to save memory space but if i do that the emails delete from outlook on my laptops.

Is there a way of deleting them from the phone but leaving them on my laptops (or at least one of them).

Changing the phone to pop3 is not an option because it creates a peculiar fault whereby whenever email is downloaded to the phone, even if it's unread, causes all emails in outlook to show as read, even when they aren't.

I also have to use imap because vodafone won't support outlook/pop3 and theres is a mojor problem with pops that cuased vodafone to keep redownloding previously downloaded messages multiple times.

help!

[BandOfBrothers]

Hi,

This happens on my imap BT email account when deleting emails either on my Samsung Galaxy s7 edge and iPad Air. 

Mine drop into the trash bin or recycle bin or I move them directly into a named folder. 

I think its because one of the features of imap is synchronisation across devices. i.e delete from one place and the servers update. 

[johnconstable]

yes - its the synchronisation I want to disable on the phone.

[BandOfBrothers]

I've yet to find a way with imap. 

As as I mentioned emails I want to retain I move on my Samsung s7 edge to a sub named folder so it's accessible on whichever device I use to access my email.

[johnconstable]

I'm not sure that would help me. If a creat a 'tokeep' folder on one of my devices and put emails in it I want to keep then imap will sync that across all devices and i'll still end up with a folder full of kept mail on my phone, wouldn't I?

[BandOfBrothers]

Hi,

Yes the folders would still be accessible on your phone.

I appreciate this way wouldn't work for some. 

[johnconstable]

My objective is to make space on the phone, so as long as my kept messages are the phone, albeit in a seperate folder, I still have the same problem.

Does anyone know how to stop imap syncing deletions on the phone with my other accounts?

[hrym]

I agree that this is a "feature" of IMAP and how it's intended to work.   The only way I can see is what you suggested - to create a Keep folder, which would get unwanted content from your Inbox.   I use multiple folders anyway, so my Inbox only contains new items and ones for immediate access.

FWIW, I'm using Gmail, with POP3 access on Outlook and the dedicated app on my phone.  All items that are new to Outlook show as unread (even if I've read them on any other device that uses the Gmail app) and messages sent on the phone come into Outlook as well, so I get the full trail of everything.

Does it matter that you have more than you need on your phone?   Emails don't take up a huge amount of space so, unless you're very tight for storage, they shouldn't cause much of a problem.

I don't suppose there's a "don't sync this folder" option in the settings for the service, or the email app on the phone, is there?  That would get round the problem.

[johnconstable]

thanks for your reply. Opions on the phone are very limited - I'd love a 'don't sync this folder option' as it would perfectly solve my problem.

I keep many emails on one of my laptops and keep my phone and my other laptop 'clean'. So if I delete them on my phone or second laptop they disappear from my main account on my first laptop.

POP3 was perfect for me but I had to move to imap because there was an annoying fault with vodaphone severs which kept redownloading all the mail on the sever over and over again. At one phone I had 15,000 emails in my inbox! They said they could fix it for me to use pop3 on outlook and I would have to change to imap.

if I use a 'keep' folder, that will sync too, won't it?

[ChazzD]

@johnconstable

As far as I'm aware, if you were to use a separate folder, this would also sync across all your devices.

I've had a look into this for you and unfortunately as far as I can see, there isn't a way to only delete them from your phone and not on your laptops too.