Virgin Media Community

[TB9]

Although I've been with Virgin for many years, I've always retained and used my old BT Internet email address. However, I've now switched to using Virgin email on a POP3 account because I don't want folders duplicated to Server, and I also use MS Outlook as my laptop client.

I have set Outlook to delete messages from Virgin Inbox once they've downloaded, but they all still remain.

Does anyone else have this problem or know the answer please?

[Graham_A]

@TB9 

Virgin Media Mail implements POP3 in a non standard way.  When an email client downloads an email via POP3 the email is 'hidden' to stop multiple downloads rather than deleted so it remains on the Virgin Media servers.  So the behaviour you are seeing is by design.

See here for more info: POP3-Behaviour/ 

[HowardML]

Read this:

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Email/POP3-Behaviour/td-p/2994032

and note the date it was posted. VM's POP system has always been non-standard and will stay that way

[TB9]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply and link.

I had seen that anouncement, but would have thought after 4+ years Virgin would have resolved this to comply with normal POP3 behaviour.

What's the point of International Standards if everyone doesn't abide by them.

In that anouncement, Virgin advised setting the account to IMAP, as all messages are deleted, however I tried that and it doesn't work for messages downloaded from the Inbox, as there is no option in MS Outlook IMAP account settings to delete the messages from the Server Inbox, only in POP3.

Guess I'll just have to accept it and delete them manually occassionally

[Graham_A]

Using IMAP MS Outlook will mirror what is held on the server, so when you delete an email from within Outlook it will be deleted from the server.

I use a mixture of both protocols.  I have my VM email set up in Outlook using IMAP and POP3 so that I keep an offline copy of what I want to keep and use the IMAP version to delete from the server.

[jem101]

What VM meant by the IMAP comment was that if you do connect your client over an IMAP connection and delete an email then the message on the server is also deleted, there's no equivalent concept in IMAP of 'downloading' messages in the same way as POP does it.

[用心棒]

POP like behaviour can be achieved by using a filter rule in Outlook to move new messages from the IMAP inbox to your local inbox and then, at some point, use the purge function to permanently delete those messages from the server.

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[TonyPezzolesi]

Hi there. I have recently changed my NTL World email from POP3 to IMAP to then be pushed to Outlook. Trouble is I have over 210,000 emails going back to 2010 on the server and the synchronisation with my Inbox between the mail server and Outlook is continuous and is slowing down my PC (and Outlook) massively. My question is this. If I delete ALL the emails from my Inbox on the Virgin server will it delete the messages in my Inbox already downloaded to Outlook? Also can anyone help me to set up the rule whereby if I delete a message from the Inbox in Outlook it will automatically delete it from the Inbox on the mail server too? Many thanks in anticipation

[HowardML]

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@TonyPezzolesi wrote:

Hi there. I have recently changed my NTL World email from POP3 to IMAP to then be pushed to Outlook. Trouble is I have over 210,000 emails going back to 2010 on the server and the synchronisation with my Inbox between the mail server and Outlook is continuous and is slowing down my PC (and Outlook) massively. My question is this. If I delete ALL the emails from my Inbox on the Virgin server will it delete the messages in my Inbox already downloaded to Outlook?

Yes

Also can anyone help me to set up the rule whereby if I delete a message from the Inbox in Outlook it will automatically delete it from the Inbox on the mail server too? Many thanks in anticipation

That's what happens when you find a random thread and append to it thinking it is related to your enquiry. It isn't.  You don't need rule. Just bear this in mind. The IMAP protocol mirrors on all your devices what you do on any one of the devices. So if you delete on your laptop it will delete from the VM server. The reverse is true. VM's IMAP protocol follows international e-mail standards exactly.

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You have an extraordinary number of e-mails in your inbox. Such a dangerous practice. If the VM servers ever crashed seriously (they haven't so far but who knows) all of them might have been lost for ever. If you need to archive e-mails then find a program to do that safely. Have a look at Mailstore - there is a free version:

https://www.mailstore.com/en/products/mailstore-server/?keyword=aw-en-suche-uk-mailstore&gclid=CjwKC...

[TonyPezzolesi]

Thank you for your reply. As I say these emails go back to 2010 and I am sure I don't need 80% of them so I will have to manually delete them from the VM server. As I rarely access emails via VM they have just sat there as I use Outlook