Confused with mail.

[hoody]

I'm in Australia and use bigpond via the mail programme on my macbook air, bought through apple as refurbed.

This has been happening for a couple of months now, I have some emails that I've read in the list to the left of the screen and also, some that have been deleted, either in trash or I've emptied trash.

Just now, as has been happening, I opened mail and clicked on the envelope to receive and got seven emails that I'd either read or deleted come, in as new messages with the usual blue dot beside them denoting that they're unread.

Can anyone give me an idiots guide how to stop this happening please, because sometimes I get 20 or more that I've seen already.

 

[chas_m]

Without knowing if your email account is POP or IMAP, it's hard to say what the problem might be, but what you describe is common with POP accounts. The best solution is to change them to IMAP if that option is available to you, or forward your POP mail to an IMAP account like iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo, etc.

In a nutshell, here's the problem: POP was designed to be used by one person, downloading mail onto one device. Once delivered, the mail was either retained on the server for a while, or deleted off the server immediately (depends on how you have your mail account configured). But every time you check it again, everything's new again because POP doesn't keep track of what happens to it when you do something to your mail.

IMAP, on the other hand, does -- which is why its great for multiple device owners. IMAP "syncs the status" of your email (read, forwarded, deleted etc) to the server, so when you check from another device, you don't see read mail marked as unread (etc).

 

[hoody]

Thanks Chas.

Hole in one. I've got the iMac and the mba on the same account and it's pop. I'll get on the phone to bigpond and get them to talk me through changing it.

 

[hoody]

Well, what a bloody mistake that was ! Not chas_m's advice, but letting the idiot at bigpond take charge of my computer. First of all, we have no choice but the national carrier where we live, so I called and asked to speak to someone about mail problems with a mac. They have a separate mob for this. After being re directed to the wrong people five, yes five times, and hung up on, I finally got to speak to someone after an hour and forty minutes. She took over my computer, first the iMac and then the macbook air, and changed me from pop to imap and told me that would fix it. Well it certainly fixed it... I could think of something else beginning a capital F.

Anyway, enough ranting. I now find myself with hundreds of emails and two lots of folders down the left side of the screen, where I used to have only one row. I have the original folders where I saved things that I want and I now also have a second row beneath which has a lot of my original folders and some missing. The original folders are 'On My Mac'. The second row are called by my email address. Above these are 'smart mailboxes' which until now I haven't used. There's also a load of emails that I don't want in a folder called 'vip's' and I can't delete any emails from there... well actually, I can delete them, but they come straight back again. I went to time machine and tried to revert to a couple of days ago, but when I clicked on restore, nothing happened. I did have the disc plugged in to the macbook and I had the power lead in too.

Sorry to carry on but I'm so bloody confused that my brain hurts. If I get no joy here I'll get back on to Bigpond / Telstra tomorrow. I can't do it tonight as I've been on so long today that both cordless phone batteries are flat !

 

[chas_m]

The second "set" of folders are perfectly normal and are part of the IMAP system. They are showing you what's still on bigpond's server, whereas the "on my Mac" set are showing you want is locally stored. There is probably a lot of overlap there but it is unimportant: just mouse over the "email address" header and you'll see the command to "hide" the details of it. Click that and just forget about it (DO NOT try to delete it).

Why you're getting a VIP folder I'm not sure -- this is suppose to be a view (not its own inbox!) of senders you have previously designated as VIPs. They'll have a star next to their name and incoming mail from that person or company will appear in the inbox (where it actually resides) but also in the VIP box (which is again just a filtered view of just those people/companies) so you can find them quickly.

I have, for example, my wife, my boss and a few very close friends designated as VIPs -- and hardly anyone else. The big advantage is that the "really important/should be attended to" mail is very easy to find and act on, and VIP email arrivals also "ping" my iPhone and iPad so I can attend to them there. Very useful feature.

Since yours is at the moment unmanaged, simply open the VIP section and click on the "blue star" next to the person's name if they are not truly a VIP in your life. The email won't disappear immediately, but the next time you open the VIP box that person's emails won't be there -- they will instead only be in the inbox or mailboxes you've assigned them to through filters (if you have).

More info about the VIP view: Keep track of important messages with Mail's VIPs | Macworld

And, just in case you're not clear on the difference between mailboxes you set up and "smart mailboxes" (which are really just filtered views, the VIP box is an example of this), here's a primer: How to use Smart Mailboxes in Apple Mail | MacTips - Top Tips and Tricks for Mac, IOS, Ipad, IOS, Iphone and Everything Apple

 

[hoody]

Thanks Chas. That's really appreciated, I'll look at the links tomorrow, as I'm too knackered now.

What a great forum.

 

[hoody]

Hi again and sorry for being so long in getting back... life got in the way.

Anyway, this mail thing isn't improving. I didn't realise until recently that when the Telstra / Bigpond crowd swapped me over to imap, they also put me on 'Outlook' through the 'mail' programme. Loads of emails have disappeared from the list's on the left of the screen, quite a few of which were receipts and other things that I wanted to keep. I've now got Google Drive on both machines and have moved most important stuff over. Another thing with this imap / Outlook thing is that it takes ages to decide whether there's any mail to bring in; sometimes five minutes or more to even put the blue download bar up. Same with sending.

I don't want to contact Telstra / Bigpond again if I can help it and as you know, I'm not that computer savvy, so can I ask again for some help with sorting this out. One thing I was thinking about is, could I improve things by getting Outlook out of the picture and if so how ? .As a last resort I'd agree to go back to pop3 without the 'smart mailboxes' and 'vip's'.

To summarise, all I want is to simply send and receive emails, 1- without seeing them several times, 2- without having to wait for ages while the programme decides whether it's going to send or receive, 3- do away with Outlook. Is this possible ?

 

[TattooedMac]

I hear your pain Pete. I have never used my Bigpond email, because of the headache to set it up.
Then my mum came to me because of a issue, and I'm quite savvy, but had to send my mother to the Telstra Store (it pays to make a Tech Appointment for this) for them too sort out their problems. I think in the end, she just used the Browser to sign into Bigpond for her email. don't let them take control OTA, physically go in after making a Appointment time (this is critical, because they won't see you otherwise)

I can't really help you but if its possible at all, I would GET RID of that email, from your Mac, set up a Google, Yahoo or some other email provider and then send everyone in your email list, a email about the change.
I know this isn't a solution, but Telstra deal with Telephone lines, not Email IMHO

 

[hoody]

Thanks for that. I think I'll have a try at that. Unfortunately, where I live we have no choice but Telstra for internet or phone, except for mobile of course. I have a gmail address, so maybe I'll do as you said and just let everyone know when I've done it... bound to forget someone.

 

[harryb2448]

Sadly Bigpong only care about their preferred business partner Microsfot and everything is set up accordingly. Surprised you cannot get another ISP. Mine, Aussie Broadband, for instance access through Telstra ports at the local exchange. Also there are satellite options.

 

[hoody]

yeah, I like the bigpong thing. Definitely no choice here (Bribie Island) except said bigpong. I'll psych' myself up and set about changing over to gmail very soon. I could go satellite, but it's the expense.

 

[hoody]

Just received this email. Anyone got any ideas who it might be ? I've searched for a username but came up with nothing.

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[dtravis7]

This thread was attacked by a spammer last night. I personally deleted that message and banned the user. Just ignore the email you received!

Sorry for any confusion!

 

[hoody]

Aah, thanks for that. Send him round here, I'll show him what attack's all about.

 

[hoody]

Well I chickened out of trying to set things up myself and got on to the isp (bigpond) and told them about the problems. For once I got a really helpful bloke who put me back on pop3, but set it up so that emails are deleted from the server after a week. Now I know how to do that I can adjust that myself if need be.

Thanks to all that took the time to reply, it's much appreciated as always.

 

[chscag]

For once I got a really helpful bloke who put me back on pop3, but set it up so that emails are deleted from the server after a week. Now I know how to do that I can adjust that myself if need be.

I have one email account that is still pop3 because I like leaving read messages on the server so that I can go back and retrieve them any time I want. Sort of like having a free archive. Of course your email provider may have limits so be sure to check that first before changing any options.

 

[hoody]

Thanks. I don't know if there's a limit but I don't get too many emails in a week, so I'll leave it set at that for now and see how it goes. The speed difference between pop3 and imap is amazing.