Email sync keeps downloading old mail

[Traxan]

Hope you all can help because this is a pesky bug.

I have mail on my personal account set to Manual so it only updates when I choose it. I only do it when I'm out and about. Here's the problem: It retrieves the last 25 message no matter what. So say only 2 new messages came in. It takes 23 previous emails, even though I have already downloaded them once. If I have no new mail, it downloads 25 previous mails. So i am constantly selecting all and deleting.

So how do we end this? I only want it to download new since last sync, not 25 no matter when.

 

[Traxan]

That's right. It's a POP3 account on my own personal domain. I leave mail on the server unless i delete it.

The iPhone knew not to re-download an email. Please tell me that the S4 has at least the same sense.

 

[Darnell0216]

That's right. It's a POP3 account on my own personal domain. I leave mail on the server unless i delete it.

The iPhone knew not to re-download an email. Please tell me that the S4 has at least the same sense.

If it does, I haven't found the setting yet. I haven't found a way to make it ignore previously downloaded emails and it's been irking me since I got the phone. My previous phones allowed me to set "Download by Days" which prevented them from retrieving previous emails. I've just switched to the combined inbox and if I get a new alert and do not see it at the top, go on with my business.

 

[charlibob]

I use K9 mail, pop 3, check manually, and leave mail on the server, but send to trash if I delete on phone (not the sever). It never downloads them again. If I want to review something, I simply look in the trash folder. All the emails are still waiting for me when I log in on my pc.

 

[Traxan]

Where is this "send to trash" if deleted setting?

 

[Charles Norris1]

Verizon is my cell/Internet provider, I leave mail on the server for 14-days and yes there is a reason.
I have another laptop that backs up my primary, both run Microsoft Outlook, MS-O is intelligent enough to know which messages have been downloaded to each laptop, however as others have posted my SGS4 isn't intelligent enough to figure this out. I also have a Gmail account, separate from Verizon.

 

[beef5stew]

I installed aquamail for this exact reason. It has the intelligence you are looking for.

 

[rdr555]

When you created your email you may have said "never" delete emails from server. If so, go to Incoming server settings, and change it to "When I delete from Inbox". This worked for me on my Galaxy s4 mini

 

[Darnell0216]

When you created your email you may have said "never" delete emails from server. If so, go to Incoming server settings, and change it to "When I delete from Inbox". This worked for me on my Galaxy s4 mini

You're misunderstanding our situation .
1) Your phone downloads the last 25 emails in your inbox.
2) You do something with one email on any device (ie: move an email from your Inbox to a sub folder), reducing the 25 total emails to 24.
3) On next sync, your phone insists on keeping 25 emails total, so it downloads a 25th email, the next oldest in the Inbox, and marks it "Unread".
4) You now have to scroll down to the bottom of the Inbox and read it to satisfy your "all items read" nagging tendencies.

In previous versions of the stock email client, we had two better experiences/features:
- We had the option to choose "Last xx days". So if we set it to 1 day, anything that removed email from the Inbox wouldn't matter because "Yesterday" was a new day and no other emails were downloaded to "make up" for what was taken.
- Through some intelligence, "Last xx emails" knew not to go beyond the last downloaded email. So if 1-25 was in the Inbox, removing 1-3 would just keep 4-25 until actual new emails arrived. The older 26-28 wouldn't be fetched to make up the difference.

 

[rdr555]

Here's my latest solution to getting rid of historical emails. Go to Email/Settings. Tap the email you are using. Scroll to bottom of page for "more settings". Where it says "number of emails to load" apply "TOTAL". Now then - when the next lot of obsolete emails come in (all of them) you tap the hidden bottom left button on your S4 and hit "delete all emails". It worked for me. At last.

 

[Wessel Whitehead]

Thank you...your solution works perfectly

 

[pookoochoo]

I finally got rid of this problem. I use email from my cable company (POP I guess). I logged into my email through the cable company's website. Deleting your emails directly from their site will no longer allow apps like outlook, cell phones, and other devices to find old emails anymore. Make sure you delete them from, inbox and from trash.
I use outlook so I was afraid it would delete them there as well. But no, once you receive an email on outlook, it 'copies' it. So your important messages are safe in outlook. Just deleting them from the actual carrier of your email will prevent the S4 from finding them anymore.
Probably the same thing works for yahoo email and other public servers.

 

[Florentino Garza]

Gfthh

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[Florentino Garza]

Uhfd vhf fun u ddhj

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[Onna808]

Can't you just sync new emails only? My gmail doesn't sync old emails, only my POP email

 

[Edible Walrus]

Uhfd vhf fun u ddhj

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?

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[wichitadroiduser]

How to check your pop email, delete what you want, and only receive the new emails when your phone syncs again. Then delete off your pc at your convenience. If you constantly sync ALL the messages in your inbox EVERY time you sync, chances are your email settings were automatically set up as an IMAP by your phone.
Simply delete the account and manually set up the new email account as a POP account, and it should work flawlessly. Perfect on my S3 Kit Kat

settings -> accounts-> email-> (account name) -> remove account
then settings -> accounts-> add account -> email-> ...then set up acct

good luck!!!

 

[Sam Spiro]

This is not a Sync problem. It is the Mail app, I have a tablet running Android version 4.0.4, the mail app is version 4.1, the mail works perfectly - only downloads new emails. I have just purchased a smartphone running Android version 4.4.2, the mail app is version 4.4.2, and have the above frustrating problem. Sync is turned off on both devices. Can I delete the newer mail app and replace with the older version?

 

[Crystal Dawne]

Thanks, this helped a lot!

 

[CORKY4449]

Try deleting all email from your computer junk folder and all emails from your phones trash folder...worked for me. note 4