Email disappears from my Apple mail app on iPhone

[viper69]

Curious, I had a bunch of emails for weeks on my iPhone during vacation. Came back from vacation and checked email on my PC, using Thunderbird, and all my emails both read and unread disappeared from my iPhone’s email app inbox a moment ago.

This has happened before, not sure it’s model specific but more about how email is stored and retrieved.

Any ideas appreciated!

 

[cjmnews]

Sounds like Thunderbird is using POP, and the phone is using IMAP.

POP typically downloads the email to the client and removes it from the server.
IMAP reads and leaves the email on the server. IMAP is better for sharing email between devices.

I could not find a way to change the connection in Thunderbird from POP to IMAP. I had to create a new connection, leaving the old storage folders behind. There may be a way to migrate the folders between accounts, I have not looked up how to do that.

 

[viper69]

Maybe CJ

How could I determine this in my phone?

 

[cjmnews]

I am not sure since I use third party apps to do my email for non-work. Work is set up for exchange.

I suppose if you looked at Settings->Passwords & Accounts, then tapped on the email account and Account, it may show the server names and some email providers show pop.server.com and imap.server.com to help distinguish the connections.

You can also look at the Thunderbird connection and compare the servers used.

 

[viper69]

Hi CJ

Checked the phone as instructed- both accounts on the phone are IMAP accounts. The host name domain has IMAP in them as well.

 

[cjmnews]

The problem is THunderbird (typically a PC app) that is POP. It needs to be configured to be IMAP.

 

[viper69]

The problem is THunderbird (typically a PC app) that is POP. It needs to be configured to be IMAP.

I’ll look into this, thank you as always CJ