I just set up my iPhone's mail app to connect to my mail server - I've added accounts in both imap and pop3 flavors.

I used imap for email for many years, probably from 1990 to at least 1996 or so, then I switched over to using pop3 and have since always used that with every new desktop mail client.

While using a desktop pop3 client I've always maintained settings that would, at least for a short while, leave the mail on the server, enabling me to use an imap-based webmail client every now and then. This has been the extent of accessing my email from multiple clients for the past 10 years.

With the iPhone I'd like to continue to receive mail on the desktop as it'll be where I do the bulk of my work and therefore replies.

Does the iPhone's mail app archive/cache or otherwise store the contents of messages it has read using imap? I'd like to still be able to review messages that I've previously read if for some reason I lose my internet connection.

With the imap account, when I delete a message I'm currently getting an error that it couldn't put the message into the trash folder.

Will iTunes sync SENT MAIL from the iPhone back to my desktop client if I'm using pop3 on the desktop? I really don't want to switch over to imap on the desktop as I keep a large archive of mail locally.

How do other people have mail set up on their iOS devices and how has it been working out for you?

Currently, I'm not getting any PUSH/notifications functionality with my imap account, so that's something else I have to look into (servers @ Dreamhost)

I use IMAP, I can't imagine going back to using POP3.

Yes, the mail app will download and cache messages that have been read using IMAP.

I don't see how the app could possibly sync sent mail back to your other client when using POP3. POP3 is fundamentally a readonly/delete protocol.

On IMAP delete, are you sure that the Trash folder that it is using exists. You can configure on the phone which folder it will use for Trash.

The iPhone IMAP client is the best mobile IMAP client I've used, for me at least it just works (something I could never say of the WinMo builtin one or the various third party clients I tried on WinMo).

Using pop3 on the iPhone, all folders are local to the phone. If you sync with iTunes, it will sync that data back to your computer. The sync has nothing to do with pop3 itself.

Hmm, it does seem that iTunes doesn't actually sync messages, only account settings.

Presumably this is also possible when using an imap account as the default behavior after setting the account seems to be to use local iPhone folders for SENT, DRAFTS and TRASH. However, in practice I'm getting that error when deleting and I don't see any local sent mail folder, so I don't see any sent mail at all.

In the Mail Settings you can change the locations of those folders to reside on the server. I've done this and now deleting mail no longer produces an error, with the deleted message being moved to the server's Trash folder. I haven't yet sent another message, but presumably new messages will be stored on in the server's Sent Mail folder.

With a setup like this, I don't believe I'll be able to sync the message content using iTunes and instead i'd have to set my desktop client to use imap. I haven't yet found any advantages to using imap on a desktop client, only disadvantages. Likely because of the way with some accounts I tend to leave mail in the account's "inbox" - if I practiced inbox-zero with every account (keeping up and dealing with mail sitting in the inbox) I suppose I could keep all my mail locally.

I'll only be using the iPhone for my main/personal email account and not the general business or customer support accounts since those generate way too much email - which I'm also not likely to reply to while mobile. I'd like to keep a decent amount of mail at my finger tips but I realize that I can't very well access the same archive I keep locally on my Mac. That would get to be very problematic with imap due to the sheer number of messages.

You want to access the same set of messages from multiple computers, and you want to use POP3 to do it.

Yeah, good luck with that.

My main account on my IMAP server has 1.2GB of mail in it. I can access all of it quickly from either my iPhone*, iPad*, webmail or desktop IMAP client. I'm not sure why you think IMAP is problematical for large amounts of mail ?

* though admittedly I have to resort to using the search feature on the iOS devices if I'm digging through old mail

No, that's not at all what I want. To access received mail, I know how to use pop3 and it works perfectly well regardless of how many computers you're accessing the mail with. The only caveat is that each computer will have its own unique copy of the message. Not necessarily a bad thing, depending on how you want to deal with the mail. I also thought that mail stored locally on the iPhone (regardless of what transport was used to send it) would sync back to the Mac with iTunes.

What I want, is to be able to sync back to my Mac all email I generate on the iPhone.

Since iTunes doesn't appear to do mail sync, which I thought it did, it appears my only option is to use imap on both the iPhone and my desktop for that account. That will allow my desktop to download the sent/generated messages from the server on its own.

The problematic aspect isn't necessarily an imap issue. But simply an issue of leaving that much content on the mail server, potentially making the people who run the server non-to-pleased. I recall getting warnings from the Dreamhost server with my support address when it was well below 1.2GB. I'm going to look at the mail settings to see what I can do about my quotas.

My big issue right now is that I have a local inbox on my Mac with about 2800 messages in it for that email account. If I drag them into the new account setup (for imap) it's going to copy them all to the server and then I'll have to download them all again. I suppose that's the only way to get through this unless I just want to dump them into a different local folder such as "older mail" or some such.

If I weren't using GMail, I'd be using IMAP everywhere. POP3 accounts across multiple devices is a nightmare and certainly a productivity killer. Just the idea of having read messages on one platform, then switching to another platform where those messages haven't been read. That's a lot of time you're wasting keeping all your mail straight, when IMAP does that for you.

*edit*

Wow, chalk up another one for Dreamhost. Unless that quota is user-set, that's real nice of them. Thank goodness I have 207GB of available space on GMail (the 200GB was paid for and is shared across Picasa too, so I'm cheating a little here ).

The only other solution for you, Bruno, is to archive some of your old mail on the Mac side to get it off the servers. You wouldn't be able to search it on the phone, but it would free up some space and you'd still have access to it. I have no idea how you do that on a Mac's mail client, whatever you're using.

What is the purpose of syncing if not to be able to access the same set of messages from multiple computers?

The only reasonable option is to use IMAP. There is no point in using POP unless IMAP simply isn't available.

I run my own server from home, so luckily space isn't a problem for me.

Bitt, you're getting hung up on pop. I just want to accomplish a goal, I don't care what transport is used to do it. I started out with imap but I was having some issues with the default configuration on the iPhone and was under the mistaken impression that iTunes should be doing some message syncing.

It's going to be imap, I just have to figure out how I'm gong to clean up the local settings and account on my Mac to get everything sorted.

AND...

The Dreamhost mail settings seem to want to delete/move messages out of the "INBOX" on a schedule:



Those values are mandatory in the setup. Messages can be moved to another folder when the automatic "removal" occurs.

Uh, the title of the thread is "imap or pop?".

Right. Basically, how do I set this up for the iPhone? I have to choose one of the transports, given experience with them on the iPhone and how the iPhone mail client works (or doesn't) which should I use?

I didn't care which as long as the end result is manageable.

1. The setup problem with the iPhone account, apart from push/notification is resolved.

2. iTunes doesn't do any content sync for mail.

Result is that imap is the only thing that can work.

I wasn't under the impression that iTunes knew anything about mail at all. So what are you using for mail?

Besides, why would you want to do the syncing through an actual, physical sync with your phone? Why not just use IMAP and do it over the air?

Also, what is Dreamhost's deal? Those are odd requirements... It sounds like they have a weird mail setup themselves.

Matt, iTunes is the point of contact for all things iPhone. It syncs mail setup details so you don't have to manually configure anything on the iPhone if you so choose. It will also sync changes to your settings so that you can change stuff on the desktop and it will be reflected on the iPhone the next time you sync. iTunes knows about mail. It just doesn't do anything about the actual messages.

I didn't "want" to use iTunes. I was just under the impression iTunes handled messages and thought that's what it would be doing when I did a sync - which I already do for apps, contacts and calendars.

I as asking for input based on iPhone-sepcific experience on how I might set this up, not documenting how I was going to do it. I hadn't made up my mind yet, and the only reason I mentioned pop3 was to let everyone know how I currently had my desktop set up.

Everything is now set up, but I can't seem to get my 2700 sent items up to the server's sent mail folder nor can I seem to get my previous 2800 received messages up to the server's "older" folder.

It should pretty much be drag-and-drop, or whatever the equivalent might be for whatever client you're using. Are you getting an error? In what way is the copy of the messages not working?

Drag and drop is exactly what I've attempted. For the sent items I received an error right away and no messages were copied/moved. For the "other" folder it started copying and then produced an error after about 20 messages.

I'm trying again right now and will post back any error messages I receive.

Got an error after about 70 messages but it was dismissed quickly as I was in the middle of something else. Something about not being able to write to the folder though.

I started again with the remaining messages and so far it's up to 90-something (checked through Mail's Activity window)


The other issue I'm having right now is that when I reply to email in this imap enabled account on my desktop, instead of sent mail going to the sent mail folder on the server, it's going to a local folder. Even if I delete the local folder it just gets recreated after an additional reply. Arrgh. And YES, the "Store sent messages on the server" option is checked in the settings for that account.

SOLVED. The Mac client was using a different sent folder than the iPhone. Arrgh. On the iPhone you can set which folder to use for sent items. So I used the existing 'Sent' folder. The Mac client on the other hand was using "Sent Messages" by default.

This is going to take a long time. Copying to the imap folders will error out at a random point - maybe after 2 messages, maybe after 200. The upload is also slow, no doubt because of my connection's crappy upload speed, but certainly not aided by Mail's indexing of the content being uploaded. I can see this taking at least a few days to complete, if not a multiple weeks.

If the mail folders are accessible in some other manner, use a different piece of software to get them onto your IMAP server. I'm sure someone has a Python or Ruby or whatever script somewhere on the Internet you can use. That said, I don't know what format Mail.app keeps its messages in, and that might be the sticking point.

I've got all the mail backed up raw (mbox) so if there was a better tool I could definitely use it. The issue now is that such tool would also have to check for duplicates, because I've already sent up a bunch of messages.

Or you could just start over. Or you could just compare Message-IDs.

I suppose this is another case of the best of the worst?

Frankly, after some use today with the iPhone's mail program, I think it's terrible. Beyond terrible in fact, I think it completely sucks. So far Apple is scoring about zero on its built-in apps. They're all very weak, but this mail program really really sucks - badly.

It's essentially a completely featureless mail client beyond simple reading, writing/replying and deleting/moving. Yes, those are the basics, but how about marking/unmarking messages, including flagging?

To search you have to scroll to the top of the mail list - stupid implementation I've seen in another Apple app (I'm looking at your Safari). To download more headers you have to scroll to the bottom of the list. Arrrgh. There are simply no gestures, no navigation, no menu of any kind.

When I view my SENT mail, it doesn't show who the messages are TO. Instead it shows who they're FROM, so I see my name repeated down the page... Ugh. Useless.

I think I need a replacement app.

Beyond the lameness of the client, now there's the fact that the messages on the server are listed in the wrong order which is causing old messages to be displayed before new messages. This doesn't seem to affect the Mac OS client.

I've confirmed using Squrrel Mail, that the message order, when the client is not itself sorting, is in reverse of my uploading. That is, the last message I uploaded to the server appears first. Since messages were uploaded in batches that were each composed of chronological messages, the oldest stuff is appearing first. What a fine mess.

Viewing the headers on the mail server through the clients doesn't show any recent date or reason behind this order issue. Anyone know how to fix this?

EDIT: It's likely the reason for all this is that the timestamps on the messages are all set to today, as they were uploaded. Seeing as imap clients don't actually look at headers to determine the received date, but instead look at the file timestamps, this is all going to remain hosed until those timestamps can be fixed. And that's something that I can't do with the Dreamhost account because the mail no longer lives in my shell account but instead resides on its own mail server I don't have ssh access to. Lets see what Dreanhost support has to say when I ask them to fix this for me - I've already found a script to do it...

I promise I'm not starting another religious battle, I'm just curious, what would you do instead? How would you have the search work? I'm assuming it would have to be an always-present software button. Or perhaps sliding to the left or right. Or maybe a gesture?

It may take up physical space, but the dedicated search button on my phone helps here, and I use it for this exact thing almost daily, so I'm glad it's there.

I think Apple has done nearly all they can here. They've carried through on their UI where you slide all the way and you get search (like on the home screens).

Apple's UI for the iPhone is a study in inconsistency. No two apps behave the same or in a similar fashion, and the Springboard (home screen) is completely different from every app as well. In nearly every circumstance there is a third party developer out there who has outdone Apple's software. It's hard to find those programs however because what's in the app store is mostly garbage. 90:1 easily.

IMO, Apple need to rethink the UI and concepts for all their built-in apps. They need to really create the next step. Everything they're shipping right now just feels pre-1.0 and very unpolished and featureless. iPad apps were a move in the right direction, and it's not only the larger screen real-estate that allows for more versatility. Apple could easily employ a pop-up menu paradigm for the iPhone as well.

You can go obscure with gestures, but that's not a solution either. Like two finger click to bring up a menu. I'm not suggesting anything like that. But in Mail there's already a bar along the bottom of the UI. Put a bloody button on it that shows multiple options in a slide-up sub-menu. The two buttons on there now are single-function. The Edit button at the top menu bar (which is also always displayed) only allows you to delete and move messages - why not forward and marking? Right now I don't think there's any way to forward multiple messages.

You do know which mobile OS usually gets criticized for that, right?

...and with good cause!

Yeah, I know. The iPhone is leagues better in that regard than other platforms and in general it's much better put together. But it has a ton of faults and has had many of them since day one. Maybe something would have been done about them if people didn't focus on the inconsequential and least important stuff, like missing Flash.

I am currently doing this using a directory on the NAS to store the email data and using Thunderbird as a client on both PC and Mac. There is an option under 'Account settings > Server settings' which allows you to set a 'Local directory' which can be a network share. It has been working fine for many years now.

So, you aren't using POP3 to access messages from multiple computers. You are using a file share to access mail from multiple computers.

True, but it has the same effect. Each computer sees the same mailboxes and messages so there is no duplication. POP3 is used to initially download the mail and store it on the share.

It very much doesn't have the same effect for the use case we are discussing. The iPhone won't be able to access the share, unless of course you run an IMAP server pointed at the share, in which case there is no need for POP3 in the first place

It essentially has a similar effect to running your own IMAP server. With the added benefit that you're able to manage the raw mail yourself locally on your server and run your own procmail (or anything else against it), plus make your own backups on your own schedule, etc.

Dreamhost's new mail servers aren't accessible by SSH so if there's ever a hiccup there, I can lose all my mail. I'm going to have to verify the efficacy of Time Machine backups with regards to Mail's caches copies of the IMAP mail to take care of this.

Some good news at least for my INBOX. I've moved the mail to a temp folder and back to the INBOX using Mac OS Mail and it's fixed the timestamps. The problems seem to have been caused by the IMAP upload utility I used to send the mail up to the server last night. I still can't get Mail to do large batches without failing, but it's a start.

Unfortunately some IMAP clients simply don't get on well with some IMAP servers. That is the one real downside of IMAP, it is a very complex protocol (more complex than it needed to be in my opinion). POP3 on the hand could hardly be less complex.

Copying large amounts of data from one folder to another tends to highlight any such issues that the client/server combination has.

Until Dovecot came along getting a reliable server that worked well with a range of clients just didn't seem possible. Thankfully Dovecot made that a lot better, though still not enough to make any of Microsoft's IMAP clients usable when not run against Exchange's IMAP implementation

I'd be surprised if Dreamhost weren't using Dovecot, I've got no experience of how OSX's Mail.app talks to Dovecot, but I do know at least that iOS's Mail.app works well against it.

I'm in the process of fixing the last of the email folders using that temp folder trick. Soon the only problems left will be the inadequacy of the iPhone's Mail program.

Just to make sure I'm not seeing some random issue, can you confirm that your SENT folder on the iPhone shows only your OWN (from) address instead of the address of your recipients? I can't get over that since I've clearly defined that folder as the "sent" folder using the prefs on the iPhone.

Ah yes, I meant to comment on that before. You are seeing some random issue, my "sent" folder behaves exactly as you would hope it would with the recipient's name shown.

Does your sent folder show the correct paper airplane icon in the folder list ?

At one point it didn't (when Mail was using a local folder for sent mail), but currently it does. I had to use Settings to tell Mail which folder on the server "Sent" was the sent mail folder. I can't believe I had to actually do that, but at least the option is there.

To confim it wasn't related to moving messages around from Mac OS, I also sent some new test mail, and it also only shows my name in the list.

The other big thing missing from iPhone's mail client is any type of sorting. It's like the model T of mail clients. You can have everything exactly how you want it, if you want it exactly how it is. "Any color as long as it's black"

Ok, *somehow* the Sent mail listing issue has fixed itself. I didn't do anything since last looking at the folder, except finish trying to fix my 'Older' folder. After a long while, my Mac OS client finished indexing everything itself and I finally checked the iPhone again. Maybe 30 minutes had passed. Sent mail now shows the recipient's name as it should. Phew.

But my mail moving trick has failed to fix the order of the messages in the Older folder... I'll revisit that again later though.

Not sure if you discovered this or not, but in Mail on OS X, you can click a folder, then go to the Mailbox menu, and "Use this folder for..." to set up what server folders map to sent, drafts, etc...