How to Manage Emails on Mac & Mobile Devices -- Looking for Advice/Experience

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Summary

I have several email accounts on several domains. All support POP and some do not support iMAP (Comcast).
  • I have a Mac and an iPhone & iPad
  • I currently use Thunderbird on my Mac as my main client
  • I currently use the native email application on the iPhone & iPad
  • I currently am using POP for all accounts. From my mobile devices I am leaving messages on server. This allows me to check mail remotely on iPhone etc and maintain my emails once I get home on my email client. But, obviously makes a bit of duplicate work when I get home as well.

As you know, there is no real synching of the actions on the emails (read, delete, send folder, etc) when using the POP protocol. I have been reading about leveraging GMail (or others) for their iMAP capabilities. By setting up a GMAIL account that checks all of the other email accounts and then having my email client and iPhone just check Gmail via iMAP. I have several questions about this approach and would like to know if anyone has actually successfully accomplished this using the tools & client software I am using. In general, I am looking for a way to more efficiently manage my emails.

Current Setup:


Requirements:
  • Would like to receive all emails on any device (Mac, iPhone, web) AND have the actions against them (read, delete, sent folder, etc) reflected on all devices; I currently receive emails on all devices but there is no synchronization of actions or folders as I am using POP
  • Would like the ability to see folders and utilize folders across all platforms -- at least going forward as I suspect existing folders on my Mac eMail client will not be able to be viewed/synched
  • Must be able to reply to a sender using the email that they sent to automatically. For example, if I receive an email to [email protected] I want to be able to use REPLY and have the sender (reply-from) be the same [email protected]. I don't want to have to choose an account, it should reply-from automatically with the correct account and thus appear to the original sender as if it came from where they sent their email.
 
Joined
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Your Mac's Specs
MBP 16” M1max 32/1tb and bunch of other mac/apple stuff
I converted my POP accounts to use IMAP, most webhosts support it, it's brilliant and does all those items you want.

As for the ISP emails comcast, hotmail, maybe just forward them to the newly switched to imap dot com emails unless they support imap as well? Gmail supports imap afaik, so if hotmail doesn't, switch it perhaps.
 
Joined
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Your Mac's Specs
Mac Mini i5 (2014 High Sierra), iPhone X, Apple Watch, iPad Pro 12.9, AppleTV (4)
Setting up gmail the way you have described will do want you want to a point.
You need to set gmail up to receive and send on behalf of another account rather than just pulling email in.
Those accounts need to support IMAP for your full syncing need to be realised. If Comcast (don't think hotmail does either) doesn't support IMAP there's nothing more you can do for that account.

Setting up gmail like this will, by default, have you reply as per the incoming mail address
 

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