Most of us uses an email client to read our emails message instead of accessing the web mail to do so. Although it is recommended to use IMAP for ease of access. Some of us uses POP settings due to
- lack of space in web server (main reason)
- prefer to manually backup email data in the PC
Instead of logging in to web server periodically and delete the mails manually, we can make use of the feature in our email client to delete on our behalf, either immediately after downloading the email or after a certain number of days.
In this instance, we use Microsoft Outlook as an example.
To do so
- Look at the top left and Click on “File”
- Once u clicked on “File” Another window will appear. From there, select “Account Settings” > “Account Settings”
- Another window should appear. Which shows you the email address(es) in your existing outlook profile under the “Email” Tab
-
outlook account settings email address - Double click on the email address (Under “Type” It should be POP / SMTP”) instead of IMAP / SMTP as shown above
- Another window should pop up
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POP-internet-email-settings-page.jpg - At this “Internet Email Settings” window, select “More Settings”
- Another window will appear again, go to the “Advanced” tab and you will see the following options. These options are quite self explanatory. However, a short brief on these features.
- Leave a copy of messages on server. If this box is not ticked, upon downloading of emails message from the server using POP, it will delete the email immediately from the webmail. However, the downloaded email will still stay in Outlook. If this box is ticked, then it will leave it in the server.
- Remove after server after “XX” days. If the previous box is ticked, then this option will be selectable. If this box is ticked, during a “Send / Receive” process, it will delete emails after a specified number of days from the web server. Mails downloaded into this device’s outlook will not be deleted.
** Note: there are rare instances where the email server doesnt obey these commands to delete send from outlook. Hence if this is a new POP email account added, you might need to monitor during the first few days to ensure that this feature works.