Running eM 7.1.31849 to a btconnect.com POP3 mail account. Since Saturday no mail sent or received. Diagnosis checks out green which I think confirms my settings and password are OK. What else could it be? I have deleted and recreated the account
update to above, it seems to have started working, but it won’t show sent items from before I recreated the account. So storage is set to C:\Users\owner\Documents\eM Client, Inbox properties are [email protected]/Inbox, which contains 2500 messages which downloaded and Sent items properties are [email protected]/Sent, which contains 0 except those I have just sent. I am guessing the [email protected] somehow refers to the storage folder, though as far as I can work out there is neither an inbox nor a sent items in that storage directory. This is a POP3 account so inbox resides out there somewhere and sent items resides on this PC but where?? and how do I change the sent items properties?
Many thanks
Rick
POP3 stores messages on your computer only. It may be that previously when retrieving messages from the server the client was not deleting them, so that is why there are past messages in your Inbox after setting up the account in eM Client.
POP3 also only retrieves messages from the server Inbox. It will not retrieve messages from sub-folders or past sent messages, that is why your Sent folder is empty. The only messages in your Sent folder will be ones you have sent from eM Client.
If you want to sync the messages and folders on the server with eM Client, then you need to setup the account as IMAP or Exchange. That way the primary storage for messages will be the server, and there will be a synced copy on your computer.
All the POP3 messages are stored inside a database in the directory you have mentioned above, either in Local Folders sub-directory, or a separate directory for that account. Both Inbox and Sent are contained inside the mail_data.dat SQLite file. If you remove the POP3 account from eM Client, it will also permanently delete this file, so you will lose any messages that were in your POP3 folders.
Hi, thanks for this - i thought with a POP3 my inbox was on the server. It certainly looked like it was downloading them all when I recreated my account.
Ref sent items - are you saying that by deleting that account from eM client and recreating it it will have deleted that account’s sent items?
If I back my mail storage folder up into the cloud, would I be able to get them back?
Ref IMAP - I would love to, but BT won’t co-operate. This POP3 account is a right hassle but changing my email address is also a right hassle - worse than moving house!! How many organisations would I have to tell?
Many thanks
Rick
Hi Rick.
POP3 means stored locally, and IMAP means stored on the server. Depending on how POP3 is setup, it may or may not delete the messages from the server after it has downloaded them. If copies were previously left on the server, then when you add the account to an email client, it will download what is on the server again. You can check how your POP3 is configured to leave messages on the server by going to Menu > Tools > Accounts, then clicking on the POP3 tab.
Yes, deleting the account from eM Client then recreating it will delete all locally stored messages for that account. Some email providers store copies of sent messages on their servers even when you are using POP3. An example is GMail. You can login to the web interface for your account and see if there are sent items there.
With POP3 it is important to make regular backups. Using eM Client’s own backup facility (Menu > File > Backup) will create a zipped file in your Documents folder. This is the best way to backup the database. If you want to use another application to backup your data, then eM Client needs to be closed during that backup otherwise the database files in the backup will most likely be empty so completely useless. If you have successfully backed-up to the cloud, then you can restore that data.
With a BT Internet account, you can have either POP3 or IMAP using the same email account. You don’t need to change your address. The best way to setup IMAP for BT is to use Automatic Setup.
You can setup this in eM Client even while the POP3 account is there. Once you have completed the IMAP setup, you can move any messages you want to keep from the POP3 folders to the IMAP folders, then delete the POP3 account from eM Client.