Email over-pushing?

anothernewbie · ‎03-29-2012

I just set up iPhone 3GS and we put my gmail account on the phone. It is pushing emails through, but not just the recent ones beginning today. It is attempting to push through all of the emails I never deleted and bringing up all of the labeled emails in their folders. I don't need that history, as it is on my PC and accessible when I want it. I just want to see new emails coming in, so I can act on them immediately if I am away from my computer. I have 4 active email accounts, for different purposes, and if all of them were to push through all of my emails, I would have go through my entire data plan in a couple of days. My old Blackberry only pushed through emails as of the date my service started, and I was able to keep everything under control. With the iPhone, I was constantly deleting emails I had already seen but didn't delete on my computer, until I got into an online chat with support. When I was told that it would all push through, and I would have to deal with all my subfolders, enough was enough and I deleted the account. That threw everything that had pushed through into my trash, and I had to move several emails back into the inbox.

Do I have any way of pushing emails so that I don't have every historical email come through?

johninsj · ‎07-07-2010

Settings->Mail,Contacts,Calendar->(scroll down to Show)->select 50,100, etc recent messages...

Max69 · ‎06-19-2006

Or, Settings...Mail,Contacts,Calendar... pick the account...Mail Days to Sync

johninsj · ‎07-07-2010

Max69 wrote:

Or, Settings...Mail,Contacts,Calendar... pick the account...Mail Days to Sync

That's the one I was shooting for... post before coffee = fail.

anothernewbie · ‎03-29-2012

I must be missing something, because I can't find an option for syncing mail by number of days. Best I can find is show 25 recent, but if I delete those, then 25 older will come up.

Sorry I'm so dense about this.

Max69 · ‎06-19-2006

When you go into Mail, Contacts, Calendar, you should see Accounts. Pick the account you want to change, and at the bottom of the screen will be Mail Days to Sync.

anothernewbie · ‎03-29-2012

When I select the account I want (Gmail), the only options I have on that screen are Mail, Calendars, Archive Messages, and Delete Account.

If I select the account again (clicking on the email address), it shows me name, address, password, description under Gmail Account Information, and then under Outgoing Mail Server it shows SMTP and Advanced, which offers me mailbox behaviors for the drafts and deleted mailboxes, and incoming settings.

The only place I can do any synching is under the calendars settings, and that is for events 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months or 6 months back, or all events. No synching for email.

Max69 · ‎06-19-2006

You're right. I just added my GMail account and there are no options for days to sync.

I was going by what I have for my Exchange account. GMail is obviously different.

Sorry about that.

brainwaver · ‎04-10-2009

FYI, the option is not there for AT&T Yahoo, either.

anothernewbie · ‎03-29-2012

That's two of my four accounts that I won't want to push through, as the constant pushing will probably use my data allowance. I'm afraid to try my other two accounts, one through Charter, the other through my GoDaddy server.

johninsj · ‎07-07-2010

brainwaver wrote:

FYI, the option is not there for AT&T Yahoo, either.

Are these POP, IMAP, or Exchange accounts.

Exchange and IMAP accounts can limit to past X days for sure.

anothernewbie · ‎03-29-2012

I believe they are all POP, so if the Exchange accounts can limit the days and we know that two of the POPs cannot, I suspect that no POP accounts will be able to limit days. To me, that means I can't use my phone to check for email unless I go out on the web to check it. Or can the people at the AT&T store easily remove all all the older messages so that I can start fresh with this week's email? And not charge me for all the data use they will incur?

johninsj · ‎07-07-2010

anothernewbie wrote:

I believe they are all POP, so if the Exchange accounts can limit the days and we know that two of the POPs cannot, I suspect that no POP accounts will be able to limit days. To me, that means I can't use my phone to check for email unless I go out on the web to check it. Or can the people at the AT&T store easily remove all all the older messages so that I can start fresh with this week's email? And not charge me for all the data use they will incur?

You could always log into your email while connected to wifi and clear off the old mail. Stop by any starbucks or at&t store and hop on the free at&t wifi

POP is such a horrible email protocol, it really needs to die.

anothernewbie · ‎03-29-2012

I can do that from home, too, right? I'm just concerned it will still take me forever and a day to delete all the old emails, even if I can retrieve 100 messages at a time.

johninsj · ‎07-07-2010

Yep, you can do that from anywhere - with POP3 you can download your emails and remove them from the server with most email clients, if you just disable the 'keep on server' option in the email app.

That will download them into whatever app you are using and delete them from the server.

anothernewbie · ‎03-29-2012

So, I can set up the email on my iPhone, delete all the old emails as they load, and they will stay out on the web where I am keeping them but will not re-appear on the phone in the future? I should just plan to spend a day or two doing this for each account, correct?

I really do appreciate all the time you all are putting into providing me with an answer.

johninsj · ‎07-07-2010

anothernewbie wrote:

So, I can set up the email on my iPhone, delete all the old emails as they load, and they will stay out on the web where I am keeping them but will not re-appear on the phone in the future? I should just plan to spend a day or two doing this for each account, correct?

I really do appreciate all the time you all are putting into providing me with an answer.

Maybe.. POP email is not like IMAP - if you download a message and "keep a copy" is not enabled, the message is deleted from the server. You SHOULD be able to sync your full POP inbox to your iPhone when connected via wifi, with "leave a copy on the server" enabled, and it should not download all your email again next time you connect - it would only get new email.

You might want to google for how pop3 email works to get a better understanding of how it works.