Email disappears from phone after a few hours

paintdrinkingpete

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This is why POP3 simply isn't a very good protocol for email handling in this day and age. It was really never designed to handle multiple clients accessing a single account on a server; especially not with full retention. I honestly don't understand why so many email providers still have POP as the only option; but I digress.

Sorry if a lot of what I'm about to say sounds like rant or doesn't help you, but this thread is several months old and sometimes knowledge can be power, so here goes...if you're having any problems similar to the ones in thread, here's what I would do:

1. If this issue you're having is with a corporate account, I realize there's not much you can do; but if this is a personal account, what I really recommend is switching to Gmail...or Yahoo!...or whatever MS is calling their mail service now a-days (Outlook.com?). All of these providers work with more advanced protocols such as IMAP and ActiveSync that work much better when it comes to accessing your mail on multiple devices and/or computers (Yahoo may still actually charge $ for some access, so you may want to check that). I recommend Gmail, and that has nothing to do with my affinity for Android either (although that does make it even better). Gmail makes this easy, as you can have your gmail account access your old email and pull any new messages right in, so to any of your friends it's pretty seamless, no having to send out a mass email saying, "hey, I changed my address, email me here now!". The other thing is that email addresses attached to your cable, satellite, telephone, etc provider are not always permanent -- what if you were to move and no longer had Cox cable, would you continue to pay them just for email service? I think not.

Gmail is very flexible, the services are always free and they have a lot of great features. Even if you have an iPhone, I'd recommend it. The gmail app on Android sync flawlessly and seamlessly with your online account -- no having to worry about messages downloaded on one client not being visible on another and so forth. (And yes, you can setup Gmail to run on Outlook if you prefer that over the web interface).

Even if you use the stock Email app on Android phones, most of those providers have their messaging protocols built in, making setup easier and syncing across devices more manageable.

2. Try a different email app. Frankly, the stock email app is crap on most Android phones. I don't know if it's because Google just focuses on Gmail and leaves generic email app out to dry or what, but I agree that's not very good and even the iPhone has a better stock email client. There are alternatives, however -- there's a few free ones out there with great functionality, like K9, that works great with a lot of accounts even if it isn't exactly user-friendly. There are also some paid apps, like Touchdown, which I hear is a great app for Exchange accounts. If your problems lie more with formatting options and stuff like that, I'd definitely recommend doing a little app searching for a better alternative.

3. See if your email provider does IMAP instead of POP. A lot times folks don't realize that IMAP is an option when setting up their account; but a lot of corporate email servers have the support for it. Unlike POP3, the IMAP protocol actually syncs all clients to the primary mailbox on the server -- whereas POP3 just downloads copies of messages to a local cache, which is why syncing between devices can get messy.
 

Kevin7777

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Thanks for that info!

I chatted with Samsung Support this morning and it has nothing to do with your email clients. Confirmed that the Galaxy S3 deletes old emails automatically as soon as it receives new emails and there is no fix for this issue. The Chat support person I talked to said he will forward the issue to the support team, so don't bang your heads around trying to figure this one out - it's not an Android issue.

Here's a quirky little way around this. Open the email you want to keep and delete it. Click the "Trash Can" icon and it will go into your "Trash" Folder. Do it quick because if you get another email, it will be automatically deleted to who knows where. So far, all my emails stayed in the "Trash" folder that I wanted to keep.

Samsung didn't really think this one out to well, going back to my iPhone tomorrow!
 

Mario De la Vega

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I?m having the same problem but I dicovered tha it only happens when I open my hotmail account through Outlook 2010. If I go directly through the Hotmail Web Page the messages are still on my Galaxy S3. I coud not find an option on the Phone nor on my Outlook mail set up. Does anyone know?
 

Cheryl Pelly

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Re: Email disappears from phone after a few hours:

The phone will be set up to sync with your email program so it can get emails. The emails you see on the phone are "read" from the online server. If your online server has your account as a POP account then when the email is downloaded to your laptop or to another device then it will no longer be on the server and then when your phone syncs with the server the email will "dissapear" off your phone.
To fix this your can change your mail account to IMAP. This is not always possible. You provider may not allow this for your account type.
Another way to fix this that l think is easier is to go into the email program on your laptop eg Outlook , and go to Tools / E-mail Account / view or change / select account / more settings / advanced. THEN tick the box to keep emails on the server for your chosen time limit. THEn email will be able to be downloaded and or viewed on several devices, as long as it is on the server..

Or at least this is what l did and it worked.
 

Andy Aronson

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Jan 27, 2013
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I am having the same problem despite all the help on this forum. The problem is only with my andy@coolshot.com email account that I send through Gmail for filtering. Gmail is set up for POP. My other POP email accounts using the stock Galaxy S3 email client do not have this problem of email disappearing. I found this link on the Google site: Using POP on multiple clients or mobile devices - Gmail Help. It talks about "recent mode" but you have to change your POP username to 'recent:mygmailusername@gmail.com'. The only place that I can find to do this is in the incoming server set-up. For existing accounts, this line item is greyed out and I cannot find a way to modify it. Nonetheless, when I create a new account and use the 'recent:mygmailusername@gmail.com' then I cannot log into the account. It seems that there is information missing here or I am doing something wrong. I was hoping this would keep emails from disappearing but, as was noted above, the problem may persist if the root problem is with the Android app. Has anyone tried this 'recent mode' successfully? If so, how did you set up the Android POP account to do so?
I do not have this problem on my iPad (without the 'recent mode' config.)

Thanks very much.
Regards,
Andy
 

mo chorney

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RESPONSE to Cheryl Pelly
I have this problem too (S3 MAIL app with new phone with JellyBean) ... using my sympatico.ca email which is hosted on Hotmail...
I use Outlook Express to access my mail on my PC...
I did go in on Outlook Express "tick the box to keep emails on the server for your chosen time limit" (none specified).
However, I still have the problem...

Anyone else have any ideas???
 

BBSeattle

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Thanks for that info!

I chatted with Samsung Support this morning and it has nothing to do with your email clients. Confirmed that the Galaxy S3 deletes old emails automatically as soon as it receives new emails and there is no fix for this issue. The Chat support person I talked to said he will forward the issue to the support team, so don't bang your heads around trying to figure this one out - it's not an Android issue.

Here's a quirky little way around this. Open the email you want to keep and delete it. Click the "Trash Can" icon and it will go into your "Trash" Folder. Do it quick because if you get another email, it will be automatically deleted to who knows where. So far, all my emails stayed in the "Trash" folder that I wanted to keep.

Samsung didn't really think this one out to well, going back to my iPhone tomorrow!

I think I am misunderstanding you, or at least I hope I am.
Your statement regarding the GS3 automatically deleting emails (regardless of who you heard it from) after a new one is received is completely incorrect.
I have 3 email accounts set up, a POP3, corporate and Gmail. 2 of the three are set up through Outlook and I have never had a single email deleted "automatically". I have had the GS3 since day one.
I would tend to believe that your issues ARE in fact with your email server or Outlook settings.
 

LoriRedRaider

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I found the solution on my phone....I upgraded phones from the Galaxy to the Galaxy S3 and I was using the same e-mail account on both which is a live.com account (hotmail)...the S3 was removing the e-mails after just a few days which my Galaxy phone did not do.

Here is what I had to do....on the phone go to the e-mail app (I am using the one that came on my phone) and select "Settings" then click on the account under the "Added accounts" section then go down to the "Exchange ActiveSync settings" then click on "Period to sync Email" and change it to All. Now all of your e-mails will show back up. I was very happy to finally find this setting. :)
 

Admagic3

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I think I've solved this... try this scenario:

Let's say you have your mail on a pop server and you have a local laptop/desktop and a smartphone.

Now, your POP gathers your emails and they are synced with BOTH your desktop/laptop and your phone (when they sync).

If your laptop is set up as a POP email type, once you have read/accessed the mail on your laptop, it is deleted from the server the next time the laptop syncs.

And the next time your phone (even if it's set to IMAP) syncs to the server, the message is no longer there, so it "scrubs it" from the phone as well.

Does this make sense?

The obvious test to see if this is your problem, is to reconfigure the account on both the laptop/desktop AND the phone as IMAP accounts. Because if either one is a POP account, the other will sync with your empty server all the time. This way, whether it is the laptop or the phone that's syncing, they will each still have messages to download from the server, because neither device will signal a deletion. On Macs (in Mac Mail) there is actually a checkbox that you can "untick" called "Remove downloaded messages from the server" (unticking this will anable IMAP status without needing to recreate the mailbox).

This was my problem, because reconfiguring the Mac Mail account as an IMAP has stopped the problem.

So fa.

Hope this helps.

Admagi3
 

KellySD

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Go to email settings and change number of emails before it "pushes" them out.
Go to Settings and tap email account, "RECENT MESSAGES" start at 25 (default) Max number is 200 or you can set to TOTAL. Done no more "disappearing messages"
Cheers,
KellySD
 

Diane O

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the same was happening to me on my Samsung Galaxy S3...went to (windows mail)email tools on my computer>>accounts>>properties>>advanced..and checked "leave a copy of message on server"...and it seems to have fixed my disappearing emails!! I have to delete them manually now....yea!!
 

Max Rebos

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I got a brand new att s4. two weeks old and all read mail disappear from my phone. my iphone never had that problem. definitely a sofrware bug
 

NellieRose

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Not sure if this will help everyone (or anyone) but we both switched from BB to the Galaxy S4. Only one of us had the disappearing email issue and only on the hotmail account. I found the hotmail account was set to Sync 1 day...I switched that to Automatic and all the emails reappeared & have since stopped disappearing.
 

lucidme

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I am aware this is an Android forum, but oddly enough I am having this same issue with my iPhone 5 using the native iOS Mail app with both of my Cox.net email accounts.

I have verified all settings are correct (i.e.: keep on server, number of messages shown, etc). Oddly enough these email accounts worked fine for nearly a year on my iPhone 5. Then suddenly, this started happening.

I will change the settings, or re-add the account, or reset the iPhone, and it will seem fine, and appear fixed. A couple hours later all my emails are gone.

I do not use Outlook, though I do use the Mac Mail application on my computer. I am skeptical that any settings in the Mac Mail app could resolve this, since I haven't changed any settings and this issue began out of nowhere.

Calling Cox was no help. At the point of restoring the iPhone, but from seeing that this is an issue affecting other OS's I have to say I am concerned that is not the fix either.

I am aware of how POP works when its being used with multiple devices - Using a POP account with multiple devices
again though, it is all very suspicious to me since this happened so abruptly.

I am going to check my other Mail app settings, then if it continues, I think I am going to configure my Cox accounts as IMAP accounts, found the instructions for this here, if anyone needs them - IMAP Email Server Settings.

Does anyone have any further suggestions? Thanks!
 

blueman2

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Has no one found a solution??
Just got this S4. Everything has been quadruple checked. All solutions on this thread have been tried.. I am using the "recent:" prefix in both my gmail accounts. I have two gmail accounts set up pop 3 and they are both set up exactly the same in my email client (thunderbird) in the gmail settings and on the phone. The emails come in and then they disappear on the the phone. They are still obviously in thunderbird and they are still on the server when I check the web based inbox. This is why I was hesitant to switch from a blackberry and despite everything else I like about this phone it is enough to drive me back. I have about 7 days left to return it. Hopefully someone either at google (I posted there as well with no luck) or here will have a solution.If there is a glitch with the software, they should say so or fix it.
 

Gianni C

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I have recently been having the similar problems, Although mine were an abrupt change after having changed from previously using BlackBerrys, Droid-X and most recently HTC to using the new Samsung S4. I have recently (several days ago) upgraded to the Samsung 4S and use several emails Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and an original email that is out of the NYC area through Transbeam.com, which happens to be a POP based email server.

Here is the situation, because I do not have a lot of storage available on my Transbeam.com email server, I have my PC software (Outlook) set to remove all emails from the server after downloaded onto my computer. I use my S4 to download these emails first and then use computer in the evening to clear the online cue and save the emails I want to keep on my computer. The problem is, once this is done and my S4 then Syncs up with the email server, it removes all the emails that had previously been downloaded on the S4.

I have just reviewed this with Samsung online that there are no setting on the S4 to change this, as this is part of the current android version 4.2.2 and it does not support a time delay email erase from the device. In other words, the other phones mentioned above have a "keep email on phone for X days" which is what we need for our POP email accounts. Google and Hotmail have this sort of feature on the S4 in the settings, but it is not as necessary as the POP mail account... because the POP account does not have the amount of free storage as the other mail accounts mentioned.

The result: This will force me to return the S4 (which I like very much with the above exception) to change to the HTC ONE! All in All, it means configuring and transferring data / programs over to a new phone again and also taking several days to get familiarized with another phone and to a efficient operating space.

If anyone finds that there is an app that can correct this or if there is another email client app that can be loaded onto the S4 that retains the emails for "X" days, I would deeply appreciate knowing ASAP.

Thank you,

G


Noisemaker... Thank you for suggesting using K-9 app as my email client! I had looked into this solution yesterday morning prior to you mentioning it, and You gave me the last push to pulling the trigger to just doing it. After a little bit of time becoming familiar with all the features and options that K-9 has, it worked out perfectly. I now am retaining my emails on my cell phone without the use of the Samsung S4 standard internal POP email client.

My only concern is if K-9 makes my email more susceptible to being monitors anymore than we are already being monitors... ;-)

Any other suggestion? If not, thank you for your suggestion.

Best,

G.
 
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