Is mac mail syncing or just downloading?

June 8, 2017 4:38 AM

Longer question: If I delete mail using the mail program's web app, will mac mail "sync" my local copies -- i.e., will it delete emails from my laptop that it has previously downloaded?

I work for a small international company that uses Strato mail as the mail system. I use my mac mail to read and manage my mail (not least because I think Strato's web mail is awful). I've started getting warning emails saying my mailbox is almost 100% full, and at that point some features are going to be limited. (The email's in German, which I don't speak, so I've had to rely on Google translate to understand.)

Anyway, I don't want to lose old email that is already living on my mac hard drive. I'd be perfectly find going into Strato's web mail and deleting everything, if I was sure it would be deleted from my laptop the next time Mail connects. I don't *think* that's the case... My understanding is that Mail is downloading messages from the server as they come in, and not just mirroring what's on the server. BUT, I don't trust my knowledge on this enough, so I'm reaching out to the hive mind for confirmation. :)

posted by leticia to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

These settings are configurable in mail preferences, presuming you're using an IMAP connection.
posted by spitbull at 4:46 AM on June 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: The safe thing to do is to create an archive folder that is local only on your Mac, and move the mail you want to keep locally to the archive folder. Then you can delete the emails from your inbox, which should delete them from your server. If not, then you can use webmail to delete them.
posted by COD at 5:45 AM on June 8, 2017

Best answer: You can configure any mail client as either a pop client (fetches the email from the account and downloads it, removing it from the server) or an imap client (mirrors whats on the server at all times). Deleting an email from webmail is sort of irrelevant in the first scenario because if you were setup for pop, there wouldn't be emails piling up on the mail server to view and delete in webmail to begin with. Deleting an email from webmail in the second scenario will delete it from the mail server and it will therefore also disappear in your mail client.

Previous answer that suggested copying all the email you want to save to a local archive is best.
posted by TestamentToGrace at 6:50 AM on June 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks, TestamentToGrace, for the quick and clear description of pop v. imap. I'm definitely using IMAP.

I ended up exporting folders of really old mail (relating to long-closed projects, etc.) and deleting, then making a local archive for more recent stuff that I still need easy access to.
posted by leticia at 10:02 AM on June 9, 2017