Emails disappearing

[Guest DonVincenzo]

I just got the MDA Vario on Monday, and so far have been very happy with it. However, I have noticed a problem with the email client - I have it set up to download my emails from gmail, and on 3 occasions now it has wiped my inbox. I'm not sure what has triggered it, and it seems to have left the contents of the deleted items intact, however emails that have been downloaded have disappeared on 3 separate occasions. I have it set to check for new emails every 15 minutes, but it has sometimes been more than a day before they have been wiped.

Anyone had similar problems?

Thanks...

[Guest chucky.egg]

It could be all sorts of things:

1. Pocket Outlook may be set to only show messages from the last N days

2. Outlook on your PC may be set to remove emails after they are downloaded (or remove emails after N days)

3. I seem to recall that there are settings in GMail that tell it what to do with emails that have been downloaded.

[Guest DonVincenzo]

It could be all sorts of things:

1. Pocket Outlook may be set to only show messages from the last N days

2. Outlook on your PC may be set to remove emails after they are downloaded (or remove emails after N days)

3. I seem to recall that there are settings in GMail that tell it what to do with emails that have been downloaded.

You mentioned that Outlook may be set to remove emails - to test it I tried connecting it to my PC again, and after ActiveSync the two emails that were on the Vario had disappeared. However, the entire time I made sure that email was not included in the sync, so I'm not sure where exactly it is set to remove emails...I haven't been using Outlook to get the emails onto the Vario, and just purely using the client on the Vario to download the emails directly...

[Guest chucky.egg]

Ahh, OK, these things are easy to get confused.

The way ActiveSync works, and the way POP3 access work are different. If you remove Email from ActiveSync it may well delete the emails from your device.

1. In Outlook on your PC go into the email account settings for your GMail account and you should find an "Advanced" tab (from memory) The last option on that tab is about keeping/removing emails from your POP3 mailbox. SET IT TO LEAVE MESSAGES ON THE SERVER

2. In Pocket Outlook on your device go into the GMail account settings. Go to page 4 of the settings and click "Options", then go to page 2 of the options and UNTICK the box that says "Only display messages from the"

3. Go to the GMail webmail system. Go to Settings (link in top right corner of webmail) and then the "Forwarding and POP" tab. Option 2 "When messages are accessed with POP" should be set to "Keep Google Mail's copy in the Inbox". Save changes.

Now send yourself an email to your GMail account. Give it a few minutes to arrive (I find it's normally very quick).

Do a send and receive on your PDA.

Download your GMail on your PC.

Do another send and receive on your PDA.

You should end up with your test message on both your PC and PDA. If you delete it from either of those it will stay in your GMail Inbox, so if you ever wipe your device you can get them back.

The only downside to this is that periodically you need to delete/archive emails in Gmail, otherwise your GMail Inbox is fine but it'll take an age to send and receive to your device.

[Guest DonVincenzo]

It seems after a bit more testing this is not very predictable...it seems that it may not be ActiveSync thats the problem - whilst before it did wipe the inbox on the Vario on connecting the Vario to my PC, that hasn't happened again since.

Also, on checking the 3 steps you mentioned above, I already had everything as you described - Google keeps the mail in the inbox after POP3, the Vario was not set to only show a certain number of days' emails, and I don't actually have anything configured in Outlook's email - when at my PC I access Google through Firefox...

Thanks again for your help...

[Guest DonVincenzo]

I think I've figured out the problem - it seems that whenever I delete something in Gmail (ie accessing it through a regular web browser) the next time the Vario does a Send/Recieve it also removes it from the Vario's inbox - it doesn't move it to deleted items on the Vario, it just goes. I'm not sure if this is necessarily what I was experiencing originaly, but its certainly happening now, which surprised me as I though with POP3 when you downloaded an email onto a local machine, even if it is set to hold the emails on the server as well, the two copies were then separate and could be manipulated independantly of each other...anyone have any suggestions?

[Guest jimbouk]

That is normal behaviour. When you do a send/receive it updates your device with any changes on the server (eg deleted items/new items).