eMail Question

I only want to receive new eMail on my iPhone.iPad.
My problem is I get every message that I have already opened on my iMac.

Is there a way to set up my devices to only receive mail that has not been received already?

Thanks in advance

Are you using IMAP on all of your devices? If so, you will still receive all the e-mails, but they should be marked as read if you've read them on any device.

So for example, I have my GMail account hooked up in my iPhone, iPad and I use the browser on my iMac. If I check on email on the iPhone and have new ones and read them, when I check the emails on the iPad or on the iMac in the browser, they will show up as well but as read so I don't get any banners or numbers or anything..

This is how it is SUPPOSED to work..

I have a POP3 account with my provider. I suppose I need to change this.

Thanks for the tips

If you are using POP3, then you must have the setting set to leave a copy of the e-mail on the server, and thus every device will get a copy of the email. Otherwise, the first device that gets the email will be the only one with the email.

But, POP lacks the coordination that IMAP supports which does what I described. So if you can switch over to IMAP, especially with multiple devices all looking at the same account, it'll be so much better for you..

Thanks again. I was looking into the settings for the POP account and changed the setting to leave the a copy on the server to NO.

This actually is perfect for me. I use my devices to read messages when I am not home so I will still get a copy on them when away. And I will not get copies of the ones I have read on my iMac at home. Just what I wanted.

Thanks again

OK, but realize that now the copies of emails you get when you are away on your devices will stay on those devices and you will not have them on the iMac for reference or archive..

IMAP gives you the same emails on all of your devices and remembers the read/unread status across all of them. So while switching of that flag might be a quick answer, you might want to consider transitioning to IMAP if you have that support..

OK, but realize that now the copies of emails you get when you are away on your devices will stay on those devices and you will not have them on the iMac for reference or archive..

Click to expand...

Very important information and advice here..... removing email from the server after downloading to any device means they're gone for good from the server. If you should ever need to go back and search an email message that's lost and it's not archived on one of your devices, you will have no way to retrieve it again.

I understand the risk but for some reason this is not working as you describe. I can view all my email message on my iPad or iPhone and when I get home they are still available on my iMac. Even if there were deleted on my devices.

In reverse, If I read the messages on my iMac they will not be available on my devices. Which is exactly what I wanted because I do not read email daily on my devices and when I would open the mail program there was always 60 or 70 messages that I had already read and I would have to delete them. Now I just get the fresh messages on the devices. Perfect.

Thanks for pointing me to this setting. Much appreciated.