can you have pop3 account setup on two devices?

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › can you have pop3 account setup on two devices?

enozkeeg

84 posts

Master Geek

#110417 9-Oct-2012 09:47

It has been ages since I dealt with POP3, my partners dad is terrible with computers so I get roped in. He has his email to his home computer and wants to config up his Android device to have his email come through that as well. Does POP3 support two devices? OR does it have to be one or the other? I glanced around the xtra.co.nz/help section and found it to be lacking, much like their phone support.

keewee01

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#698283 9-Oct-2012 09:52

enozkeeg: It has been ages since I dealt with POP3, my partners dad is terrible with computers so I get roped in. He has his email to his home computer and wants to config up his Android device to have his email come through that as well. Does POP3 support two devices? OR does it have to be one or the other? I glanced around the xtra.co.nz/help section and found it to be lacking, much like their phone support.

If I remember correctly some applications let you configure whether or not to delete the messages off the host once they've downloaded, so it should be a matter of configuring that.

LennonNZ

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#698286 9-Oct-2012 09:55

The standard way POP3 works if it will pick up the mail from the remote server and then delete it all so if you are using 2 machines you will get random emails on both devices but not the same.

BUT... A lot of POP3 clients have the "leave mail on server" option so it will download the messages and remember when it is up to. This will then work on 2 devices but if ether machine forgets where its up to you could see it re-downloading all the messages .

Better would be setting up IMAP Access on both devices and this is a lot better. You can have shared folders between devices (which you cannot have via POP) and its just a lot nicer.

Ragnor

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#698289 9-Oct-2012 10:07

POP3 sucks you have to configure the clients to leave the messages on the server and if you read a message on once client the your other clients won't know that message is read.

Also most NZ ISP's provide shoddy email service eg: poor spam filtering, no IMAP, no SSL/TLS on alternative port to 25.

If he has an Android best to make the switch a gmail account as his default address and ween him off the ISP email address:

1: Signup for a gmail account
2: In gmail settings setup the gmail mail fetcher to pull email in from the ISP address (in case people still send to it) into the gmail inbox
3: Over time change all your newsletter subscriptions to use the gmail address.
4: Enable IMAP access in Gmail settings
5: Send an email from the gmail account to all his contacts saying the gmail is his new email address
6: On the desktop use the web interface into gmail and/or an email client via IMAP (Thunderbird or Windows Live Mail aren't bad)
7: On the phone use the inbuilt gmail app

Eventually your xtra or ISP account won't receive any important email and you can the ditch the account.

Congratulations he will be free from ISP provided email, meaning it's easier to change ISP in the future

Switch to Gmail
https://mail.google.com/mail/help/intl/en/switch.html

Gmail Mail Fetcher
https://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=21288

Gmail IMAP/SMTP settings
https://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=78799

Oblivian

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#698297 9-Oct-2012 10:20

I've just gone through above process (after 16 yrs with Xtra.. tiring much!)

But if the suggestion is quickly filed into the 'toohard' bin and you want a quickfix, get the yahoo mail app for android. Works fine with xtra and uses IMAP functionality so only when you tell it to delete from server, it will. Or the android mail client can be configured to do the same manually (automatic always tries pop)

Jaxson

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#698313 9-Oct-2012 10:54

Ragnor....

Mate, great post. Many have parents in this exact situation and the above process maps this out very well. Cheers.

tchart

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#698315 9-Oct-2012 11:02

PS just in case someone ever comes across this. I friend was getting many "login denied" messages on his PC with his Xtra POP3 account. Turns out he was also checking this account on his iPhone and the iOS mail client doesn't release the connection. Only when we turned off the iPhone was the PC able to log in and get the mail.

The joys of having POP3 on two devices...

Zeon

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#698324 9-Oct-2012 11:55

pop3 is terrible. Switch to IMAP ASAP!

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enozkeeg

84 posts

Master Geek

#698334 9-Oct-2012 12:12

Jaxson: Ragnor....

Mate, great post. Many have parents in this exact situation and the above process maps this out very well. Cheers.

Yeah cheers for that it is a good idea.

However I am definitly thinking - to quote Oblivian: toohard bin - I am in Welly and he is in Akl. The suggested yahoo app might be the way to go.

Or I could just flag it and go and get a root canal without any painkillers, it would be probably easier...

enozkeeg

84 posts

Master Geek

#698846 10-Oct-2012 07:38

Ragnor:
Also most NZ ISP's provide shoddy email service eg: poor spam filtering, no IMAP, no SSL/TLS on alternative port to 25.

Anyone know if Xtra supports IMAP? And is it just instead of pop3.xtra.co.nz, use IMAP.xtra.co.nz

Oblivian

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#698861 10-Oct-2012 08:36

I did sort of mention the yahoo app uses imap back up there^^

imap.mail.yahoo.com

Full login @xtra.co.nz for username

enozkeeg

84 posts

Master Geek

#698874 10-Oct-2012 09:15

Oblivian: I did sort of mention the yahoo app uses imap back up there^^

Yeah I was thinking that would wind up being a dumb question, cheers for the other details, I will try and get it working.

enozkeeg

84 posts

Master Geek

#698892 10-Oct-2012 09:56

Sweet! He took it into the shop he got it from they config'd it up in a flash - dunno what they did and don't care - Our (my) responsiblity is finished!