prevent deleting mail on server

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lian
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prevent deleting mail on server

Post by lian »

Hello, I’m retrieving my mails via POP and deleting the message in PopPeeper deletes the messages on the server. How to prevent that ?
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Jeff
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Re: prevent deleting mail on server

Post by Jeff »

That's the way that POP Peeper has always worked and probably always will. A couple alternatives:

1) Hide instead of delete. You can assign a keyboard shortcut like 'H' under main menu: Tools / PPtweaker / Shortcuts.

2) Move the messages instead. To facilitate this, you can delete to a different folder by editing each account and go to the "Advanced 2" page. Requires Pro.
lian
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Re: prevent deleting mail on server

Post by lian »

Thanks, I suppose that Hide can do the trick. But I suppose that all hidden messages will be stored in default directory ? I need only to check if there are messages, the content eventually and leave the messages on the server. Maybe I should find another solution than PopPeeper for this.
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Jeff
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Re: prevent deleting mail on server

Post by Jeff »

As you wish. Like I said, moving messages is another alternative and it sounds like the preferred method if you're concerned about efficiency. As long as the message is still in your inbox, it still has to be processed to know whether you've read (or "deleted") it.
lian
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Re: prevent deleting mail on server

Post by lian »

I chose to get it via my Gmail account as I can choose to leave it on the server this way. And I can still use Poppeeper to read the mails.
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Jeff
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Re: prevent deleting mail on server

Post by Jeff »

I'm not sure what that means :? hmmm... ah, so you have accountX and you have a separate gmail account; you have the gmail account get a copy of accountX's messages (via pop3 or whatever) and then you use PP to view the messages in your gmail account; and then you can delete messages via PP from your gmail account and thus still have a copy on your accountX account. Is that about it? I still think the 2 options I provided are more straight-forward (and in the case of moving messages to a separate folder, more efficient/ideal).

The problem with "deleting from PP and not the server" is that it's not very practical. As I mentioned, the message still exists on the server so whatever client (PP) is still going to see that message and needs to remember it one way or another. As your inbox grows, that list of messages keeps getting bigger and bigger and this is data that is sent from the server to the client and is certainly a point of efficiency (not just the bandwidth, but each message id needs to be checked and compared with what the client already knows).

I will say that your solution is somewhat elegant in that it offloads most of that necessary processing off onto gmail's servers :)

...

How often does gmail retrieve messages from accountX...?
lian
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Re: prevent deleting mail on server

Post by lian »

You are globally right : the only difference is that my GMail account redirects the messages to a pop account. I use mainly my gmail account for non professional/personal mail (forums, inscription…) as it is very good to prevent spam and I redirect the mails to my main mail account.

I was a little surprised I did not find the feature in PopPeeper as it exists in Thunderbird/Postbox : do not delete mail on the server (and "delete the mail on the server after xxx days" thas is quite handy if you are paranoid).
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Jeff
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Re: prevent deleting mail on server

Post by Jeff »

That setting in TB doesn't do what you think it does. POP3 clients traditionally -- by default -- delete messages from the server when they're retrieved. By setting it to "don't delete", it simply won't delete messages when they're downloaded into TB. I could be wrong (it's been over a decade since I used another email client [I did used to use TB to store messages locally]), but I think that if you delete the message in TB, it will delete the message on the server.

Regardless, the reason I initially said (and forgot to explain), "That's the way that POP Peeper has always worked and probably always will" is because POP Peeper is not intended to be a full-fledged email client -- it's an email notifier/screener. The traditionally expected use of such utilities is that deleting messages deletes from the server so that your email client won't bother to collect them. Now, granted, PP has gone well beyond the scope of an email notifier, so that could be a good argument. But "hiding" is effectively the same thing as what you're asking for and is already implemented in PP; the only difference is that hiding will store a little more data in the database because it still stores the (compressed) message data.
lian
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Re: prevent deleting mail on server

Post by lian »

I cannot find the official documentation (??) but Microsoft cannot be wrong :-) https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/top ... 62597fd1a6
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mjs
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Re: prevent deleting mail on server

Post by mjs »

Can't say for sure about TB - but, FWIW, what I get in my Email Client (Interlink) that is in many ways very similar to TB depends upon the Email Service that is used i.e. Gmail appears to perform different than say Outlook.com or Yahoo.com etc.

For the latter accounts (Outlook, Yahoo) -- if (when initially setting up an account) I do not leave the (default) check for "Leave messages on server" in my Email Client then the message(s) will be removed from the server as of the next specific Accounts Mail Check by the Email Client:
Leave messages on server setting.png
Once an account is setup there are alternate options as such that can modify this that perform accordingly (i.e. if "Until I delete them" is enabled then the message(s) will be deleted from the Gmail Server on the next Mail Check by the Email Client for the corresponding account):
Client Server Settings.png
Client Server Settings.png (6.03 KiB) Viewed 2161 times
With that said, Gmail behaves (at least in my case) in a different way as far as I can tell (in as much as the Email Service in question in this topic happens to be "Gmail").

Firstly, in regards to Gmail using "POP", for my Email Client it is required to set the Gmail account to use "POP":
Gmail settings required to use POP3 in 3rd-party app.png
and if I do not do this I get the following error in the Email Client:
Error message if POP is disabled in Gmail account.png
Error message if POP is disabled in Gmail account.png (7.49 KiB) Viewed 2161 times
In as much as the Gmail "POP" setting is required for my Email Client in order to use "POP" - I find that the "POP" settings in Gmail (regarding how messages are retained on the Gmail Server) supersedes any of the Email Client settings in this regard that may be in conflict with the Gmail "POP" settings. Other than that, whether or not messages will remain on the Gmails Server will be reflected by what the Gmail settings for "POP" are set at (as illustrated in the 3rd screen-shot). Presumably, if there are no conflicts between the Gmail Settings and the Email Client settings, I would presume the Email Client settings would apply (equally).

So in my case, with the caveat that it will depend upon what settings are applied, it would appear I get similar results to what Jeff has described in his post above as to what occurs on an Email Server when using "POP".

Hope this helps. :wink:
Good judgment comes from experience and a lot of that comes from bad judgment. - Will Rogers
lian
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Re: prevent deleting mail on server

Post by lian »

@mjs : I’m not sure I understand what you meaned exactly as I don’t retrieve Gmail messages through Pop (they are sent to my main mail address).
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mjs
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Re: prevent deleting mail on server

Post by mjs »

I was for the most part just trying to provide clarification specific to comments in a previous post as referenced below (in as much as Jeff had mentioned he hasn't recently "used another email client"):
Jeff wrote: Wed Jan 05, 2022 3:04 pm That setting in TB doesn't do what you think it does. POP3 clients traditionally -- by default -- delete messages from the server when they're retrieved. By setting it to "don't delete", it simply won't delete messages when they're downloaded into TB. I could be wrong (it's been over a decade since I used another email client ), but I think that if you delete the message in TB, it will delete the message on the server.
Good judgment comes from experience and a lot of that comes from bad judgment. - Will Rogers
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