Linking email to the Virgin Media site email

[DebJon]

First of all I hope that this post is clear and makes sense!
I have my email account on my tablet and access it directly; I don't check the emails on the VM site regularly and there are a large amount of emails there that I've deleted from my 'everyday' account. Is there a way to link (sync?) these? So that when I delete from my everyday account they are deleted from the VM site?
TIA

[coenoby · Accepted solution]

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@DebJon wrote:

First of all I hope that this post is clear and makes sense!

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Your post is clear but I have had to make some assumptions.

have my email account on my tablet and access it directly.              

on the VM site ..... there are.......a large amount of emails there that I've deleted from my 'everyday' account.

Based on that I think that on your tablet you are accessing your  Virgin Media emails using a computer program known as an "email app" or "email client" and that is what you refer to as your "everyday account" .

These email apps and clients enable you to;

1. Retrieve your Virgin Media emails from the VM email server and download them to your everyday account on your tablet
2. They then allow you to read, reply and manage your Virgin Media emails without having to access your VM webmail account on VM website

To do that, all email apps and clients use one of two possible methods:

• POP3  -     Post Office Protocol (version3)
• IMAP   -     Internet Mail Access Protocol

The key difference between them is

• POP3 is a simple one-way protocol that merely downloads all new emails that arrive into your email account
• IMAP in contrast is a two-way protocol that not only downloads emaisl from your email account but also ensures that any changes you make in the email app are also made to your email account on the VM website. So if you delete an email from the app on your tablet it will also be deleted on the website and conversely, if you delete an email from the website it will also be deleted from the email app. In addition, any emails you send from the email app will also appear in the Sent folder on the VM website.

So it sounds as if the email app on your tablet is currently using the POP3 protocol for your VM email account.

If so you can achieve what you are looking for (syncing your email app with the VM website) by using the IMAP protocol.

An easy way to check whether you are currently using POP3 is to see if all the emails that you have sent from the app on your tablet also appear in the Sent folder on the VM website. 

If  all your Sent emails do appear on the VM website it means that you are already using IMAP and there is something-else going on that prevents emails being deleted from the VM website.

VM email accounts can support both IMAP and POP3, in fact for many years VM have been advising their customers to use the IMAP protocol.

You cannot convert a POP3 account in your email app to an IMAP account but many email apps do allow you to add your VM email account to the app again but this time you need to ensure that you set it up to use an IMAP. protocol. 

I think I had better leave it there and let you digest that.

I'm not sure whether I have been clear, I have tried to keep it simple honestly!

Coenoby

[DebJon]

Thank you so much for your detailed answer; yes your assumptions were correct.

I've checked and my sent mails are showing on the VM website, so it seems that there is something else going on! I am unsure what to do at the moment so I think I will start to delete the mails manually and see how I get on.
Thank you once again for your response.

[coenoby]

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@DebJon wrote:

my sent mails are showing on the VM website, so it seems that there is something else going on!

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The first thing to do is to check your IMAP subscriptions in your VM email account on the website:

Sign into your email account on the website and click on the cog symbol on the right hand side of the screen

The click on "Email" in the left hand menu

 

and you should then see a series of boxes like this open up on the right hand side:   

and then click on the "Change IMAP subscriptions" box.

You should then see a panel like this.

The top folders in the list should all be pre-ticked in grey but if you scroll down the list  you will see all the other folders in your account listed. Make sure all the folders are all ticked and then click on "Save"

All the folders that are ticked, either with a grey or blue box should synchronise with your email app whenever you openor check your emails in the email app on your  tablet.

If all the folders are ticked and you find that any emails you delete from you email app are still there when you look on the website then we still have not got to the bottom of what's going wrong,

Coenoby

[DebJon]

Again, thank you so much for this. I'm don't have the time to check this at the moment but definitely will and will let you know how I get on. 

Thanks again. 

[DebJon]

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you but I've followed your instructions and it seems to have worked!! Yay!! 
Thank you so much.
I will obviously keep checking.
Thank you again.

[DebJon]

Hello again! Back in 2023 you solved the email issue for me and I was able to 'link' the email accounts. Unfortunately the 'email provider' I was using on a daily basis has now closed and I am now using Outlook. I've now realised that this is not linked to the Virgin account! I've tried following your previous instructions and unfortunately it's not working this time; all of the boxes are already ticked. Are you able to offer another solution please? I totally understand if I don't get a response this time and thank you again for your help last year. 

[Ashleigh_C]

Hi there @DebJon 

Thank you so much for reaching back out and welcome back.

We are so glad to see coenoby was able to help with your issue last year and a huge thank you to them. 

Can I just check, is the email address in question linked to a current and active broadband account with us? 

[DebJon]

Hello Ashleigh
Yes it is. All that's changed is that I'm now using 'new' outlook.
Thanks for following up. 

[Graham_A]

@DebJon  coenoby is not around at the moment. However you should be able to find all the information and settings you need to add the email address to MS Outlook in the linked help page.  Look for the section on How to setup email on a device.

https://www.virginmedia.com/help/broadband/manage-email-account