Email Sync Question

[Teky0101 6]

Hello Everyone,

I know this is a gun forum but I have a question I was hoping someone could help answer. I occasionally do some freelance jobs in IT and Graphic Design and a client of mine asked to see if he can sync his Ipad with his home email account so the when he sends and receives messages it would sync on his home computer and tablet. I know you can do this with an icloud account but he wants to do this with his Yahoo Mail Plus Email account. Does anyone have any idea on how to do this? Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thank You!

[Krdshrk 3,878]

Most likely not unless they're all setup as IMAP accounts....

[TheWombat 67]

I have my home email accounts synching between my home PC, my iPad and iPhone simultaneously. As Krdshrk has said, you'd need to use connect via IMAP rather than POP3. I use gmail rather than Yahoo, however from a quick Google it appears that Yahoo Mail does support IMAP.

 

http://answers.yahoo...20003646AAf9GUG

http://email.about.c...ap-Settings.htm

 

 

hth

 

TheWombat

[Teky0101 6]

Thank you very much for your help! So if I setup his tablet in IMAP it will sync? Does his home PC setup in a POP3 account have to be changed to a IMAP setup as well?

[TheWombat 67]

Both the PC and the iPad will need to be set up for IMAP.

 

In terms of the difference between POP3 and IMAP for email synching, I've given a brief (non technical) summary below. In your scenario there are three parts to the synching puzzle that need to be considered:

• Email Client A: PC
  
• Email Client B: iPad
  
• Server: Yahoo 'web mail'
  

POP3

 

If you set up your email clients the way most home users do then they use POP3. This typically results in an email being downloaded to only one of your Email Clients, whichever one happens to be 'in use' at the time.

 

e.g. PC switched off at night, iPAD set to auto-download every 15 minutes. Email downloads onto iPad. When the email downloads it tells the Server that the email has already been read, and hence when you switch the PC on and use your PC client (e.g. MS Outlook) it doesn't download the email.

 

e.g. PC switched on, IPAD set to only manually refresh email. Email downloads onto PC client (e.g. MS Outlook) but not Ipad.

 

Also, if you delete an email on a Client, the email is not deleted (by default) on the Server or other Client. The positive of this is that if you delete an email on your PC, you can log into Yahoo web mail via your browser and the email will still be there.

 

Some of the above behaviors can be overcome to some degree depending on email client/server being used and changing settings, however at no point are the Email Client A & B, and the Server all in sync.

 

IMAP

 

The Clients and Servers are really in sync. Emails will download to all Client devices, and if you delete an email it will delete from all client devices and the server.

 

e.g.. Open up PC email client (e.g. Outlook), and Ipad Mail Client, and server web mail (Yahoo mail in web browser). The new emails will download to both client devices and will show in the web browser. Then delete the email in any one location (PC, Ipad OR web browser) and the email will disappear from ALL three locations.

 

Summary

 

The above is not 100% correct technically, but provides the summary view as to how it works. There are some pros/cons to consider:

 

You can mix and match POP3 and IMAP together. e.g. You might have a number of email accounts such as a hotmail email account for registering on websites. This is different to a gmail address you decide to use for personal correspondence.

 

You could decide to:

a) set up hotmail as POP3 and gMail as IMAP (or vice versa) to get the behavior you wish in terms of deleting/downloading emails

b) you could set up gmail to pull the hotmail email into gmail via POP3; and then use IMAP to keep in sync with gmail

etc

etc

 

I switched from POP3 to IMAP about 12 months ago and I'm very happy with how my 2 mobile devices, PC and server all keep in synch. MrsWombat still prefers POP3 for her setup although I think she is beginning to see the benefits of IMAP so maybe I'll switch her over the Christmas break.

 

note: If making any changes to your email - it is best to ensure you backup the email file/content first so you don't accidentally lose your email!

 

 

hth

 

TheWombat