Deleting Emails from Outlook Does Not Delete Them From the Server

[Kate]

Hi there,

I use two emails in Outlook - an AOL address and a Gmail address - and both
are POP email accounts. They both go to the same inbox.

I previously had my email set up so that when I would delete an email from
Outlook, it would also be deleted from my Gmail or AOL inbox. My computer had
to have its hard drives replaced, however, and now, after setting up my
Outlook again, I find that the emails are staying in my server inboxes, even
after I have deleted them in Outlook.

Could someone please tell me what the fix for this is? I would be EXTREMELY
grateful!

Thanks so much,
Kate

 

[Kate]

By the way, in Advanced settings "Leave a copy of the message on the server"
is NOT ticked.

 

[Gordon]

By the way, in Advanced settings "Leave a copy of the message on the
server"
is NOT ticked.

I think there's also a setting in GMail that you need to look at. Possibly
the same thing in AOL?

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

AOL is imap only, right? She needs to purge the folders.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]



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[VanguardLH]

I use two emails in Outlook - an AOL address and a Gmail address - and both
are POP email accounts. They both go to the same inbox.

All POP and Exchange accounts are aggregated under one message store.
Each HTTP and IMAP account gets its own message store. Each message
store appears as a separate branch in the folders tree displayed within
Outlook.

If you want multiple POP accounts to have their e-mails delivered to
separate folders then you need to use a rule that moves the e-mails
based on which account through which they were retrieved.

I previously had my email set up so that when I would delete an email from
Outlook, it would also be deleted from my Gmail or AOL inbox. My computer had
to have its hard drives replaced, however, and now, after setting up my
Outlook again, I find that the emails are staying in my server inboxes, even
after I have deleted them in Outlook.

In Gmail, they do NOT honor all POP commands. They started as a webmail
provider and poorly added the POP access. They do NOT properly honor
the DELE and TOP commands. In effect, what you get with Gmail is its
gPOP access methods which are similar enough to the POP3 standard as to
make most clients function with gPOP but not if you don't execute the
only POP commands they handle.

To have e-mails deleted from your GMail account after retrieving them
with a local POP e-mail client, you will need to use the webmail
interface to your Gmail account and configure its gPOP settings to
delete a message after it has been retrieved. Although your POP client
may issue a RETR (retrieve) command followed by a DELE (delete) command,
Gmail will only honor the RETR command. So you have to option your
Gmail account to do its own separate item deletion whether or not your
local e-mail client ever sent a DELE command.

In the Gmail settings for POP setup, select how you want *Gmail* to
handle the status of a retrieved item. It is possible that the type of
AOL account you have also requires this server-side setting to determine
the status of a retrieved item.

 

[VanguardLH]

AOL is imap only, right? She needs to purge the folders.

No. AOL also (well, it did when I used them) have POP access. However,
that was when AOL was offering free domains they would register for you.
That way, you could have your own e-mail address with your own domain.
They still offer their original set of domains from which you can select
to use for your e-mail address (but you'll only get one username for
that pre-defined domain rather than a multitude of usernames at your own
domain). The domain was registered through a Melbourne registrar and
only lasted 1 year. The renewal fee was higher than what other domain
registrars offered so I didn't bother renewing. AOL would only work
with that Melbourne registrar for these free domains that provided POP
access to the e-mail accounts.

AOL E-mail/Domain signup:
http://domains.aol.com/
http://www.tunome.com/

I still have an old AOL Domains account under their @switched.com
domain. The "Access Control Panel" link at http://domains.aol.com/
(http://domains.aol.com/personaldomain/app/controlpanel/homepage) hangs
or reports a server error when I try to login under my switched.com
username. Later it reported that I had to login as the admin for my
account but I was the registered admin before (so maybe there's
something screwed up with the account now - or maybe the account has
been idle too long so it won't work anymore). I was able to look at
[some of] my old account using:

http://my.screename.aol.com/

Because I am not an AOL member (I don't pay them), I can't show many of
their web help pages (to find out the POP settings). Below is what I
recorded in my notes:

Mail hosts
POP3: pop.aol.com, pop.aim.com port 110 (port 995 for SSL)
IMAP: imap.aol.com, imap.aim.com port 143 (port 993 for SSL)
SMTP: smtp.aol.com, smtp.aim.com port 587 (port 465 for SSL)

I haven't used this old AOL for a long time. I was surprised it was
still active.