Help with Android phone and Gmail POP settings

[LouisEly]

I'm not sure how long Gmail has been doing this, because it seems like it hasn't always been this way, but I've noticed within the last year that when I delete an email on my Android phone (HTC Evo) via the standard/default Mail app it also deletes the email on the server which then deletes the email on my computer (Thunderbird email). I don't want this to happen. I don't have this problem using the same Mail app when I switch to my Hotmail email account though. I noticed that my Hotmail account has a setting that I can uncheck that will not delete the mail on the server; I don't have that same option in Settings for my Gmail account though.

 

According to my research, this is due to POP vs IMAP settings. When you set up a Gmail account on the phone using automatic settings it automatically sets it up with IMAP protocol and IMAP does not give you the option to delete on the phone but not on the server. Apparently the reason I have that option with my Hotmail account is because my Hotmail account is set up with POP protocol.

 

So I looked up the POP protocol settings for Gmail and changed the settings of my Gmail account on my phone, but my phone would no longer download email from my inbox. I looked up POP troubleshooting for Gmail and it suggested changing the username to "recent:username@gmail.com". When I did this it downloaded my email, but it also downloaded not just my Inbox but also my Sent mail.

 

Does anyone know how to set up a Gmail account on an Andriod phone using POP settings, or any other settings, so you can delete email on your phone but not on the server without downloading all mail (Inbox and Sent) to your phone? Thanks!

[1992casey]

First things first: Log into Gmail in your web browser, choose "Settings" from the "gear" dropdown, hit the "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" link near the top of the page, and make sure POP is enabled. You can enable POP in the second group of settings on the page.

 

I don't have an Android device, but it appears that you know where to find the option to keep mail on the server. If POP is properly set up, I would think that within your phone's Gmail account settings, you'd find it in the same place that you're finding it for Hotmail.

 

If things aren't working at this point, rather than attempting to change your current IMAP account to POP, you might have better luck setting up a POP account from scratch, then deleting the IMAP account from your phone once all is said and done.

 

As an aside on this, I use Gmail IMAP on both my Mac and iPad, but I reserve labels for archiving by excluding them from IMAP. That keeps my iPad relatively clean. Archiving is a bit more work, though. For mails I want to keep, I make sure that they're assigned a label that's excluded from IMAP while also copying them to a local folder in OS X Mail on my Mac.