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How Prevent iPhone email from Synching with PC Thunderbird & Vice Versa?

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  • Last reply by sfhowes

Barryng
Barryng
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For years I used POP servers with my AT&T Bellsouth.net email accounts. I used the the PC Thunderbird installation to read, act on, and respond to email. The iPhone email app just allowed me to monitor what I was receiving while away from home, respond to infrequent urgent matters (with a cc to myself so had record on my PC Thunderbird), and keep just the most recent emails for reference as needed. Neither the iPhone or PC Thunderbird synced with each other and I accomplished this by simply instructing the iPhone to not remove emails from the server (the PC Thunderbird removed read emails from the server after two weeks). If I deleted or read an email on my iPhone it did not effect how these emails where displayed or trashed on the PC Thunderbird. Then AT&T screwed up this excellent and reliable arrangement by forcing me to convert to imap servers. Now both the iPhone and PC Thunderbird insist in speaking to one another so not only do I have a ton of unwanted old emails on my iPhone but how emails are displayed and handled on the PC Thunderbird is confusing. For example, if I see a new email on my iPhone I do not immediately care about, I immediately delete it and followup on the PC Thunderbird when I get home. Unfortunately, when I want to followup later on my PC Thunderbird, it now no longer shows as an unread email and is sometimes even already deleted when I get home. So, how do I stop the iPhone from communicating with the PC Thunderbird so I have only one place (the PC) with my full database of emails and my iPhone just contains a quick reference of recent emails just liked worked so well for 20+ years with the POP servers? Thank you.

For years I used POP servers with my AT&T Bellsouth.net email accounts. I used the the PC Thunderbird installation to read, act on, and respond to email. The iPhone email app just allowed me to monitor what I was receiving while away from home, respond to infrequent urgent matters (with a cc to myself so had record on my PC Thunderbird), and keep just the most recent emails for reference as needed. Neither the iPhone or PC Thunderbird synced with each other and I accomplished this by simply instructing the iPhone to not remove emails from the server (the PC Thunderbird removed read emails from the server after two weeks). If I deleted or read an email on my iPhone it did not effect how these emails where displayed or trashed on the PC Thunderbird. Then AT&T screwed up this excellent and reliable arrangement by forcing me to convert to imap servers. Now both the iPhone and PC Thunderbird insist in speaking to one another so not only do I have a ton of unwanted old emails on my iPhone but how emails are displayed and handled on the PC Thunderbird is confusing. For example, if I see a new email on my iPhone I do not immediately care about, I immediately delete it and followup on the PC Thunderbird when I get home. Unfortunately, when I want to followup later on my PC Thunderbird, it now no longer shows as an unread email and is sometimes even already deleted when I get home. So, how do I stop the iPhone from communicating with the PC Thunderbird so I have only one place (the PC) with my full database of emails and my iPhone just contains a quick reference of recent emails just liked worked so well for 20+ years with the POP servers? Thank you.

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sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Although I think IMAP is the best method for multiple devices, what is preventing you from using POP? Now that Yahoo-based providers (AT&T, Sky, Frontier, AOL etc.) are moving to OAuth2 authentication, instead of 'normal password', and OAuth2 for POP with these providers is supported in TB 68.5, set up your bellsouth account with the Yahoo servers, POP or IMAP.

If you stay with IMAP, note that most mobile mail apps have a setting to keep only the last week's or month's mail on the device, leaving the complete set of messages on the IMAP server. If a message is deleted on one device, it is deleted from the server, and so any other device syncing with the server will find the message is deleted. Why would one want to see a message again after it's deleted? It would make more sense to move the message to a folder named LaterOnPC, then it would be seen on the PC that has subscribed to LaterOnPC. That's not possible with POP.