How To Retain Emails On The Server & How To Download Them Locally & Remove Them From The Server?

Depending on how your email client’s inbound server is configured, emails may either be retained on the server or deleted after being downloaded locally.

All of the messages in the IMAP email accounts will remain on the server until they are removed.

If you are using POP3 email hosting, you may choose whether the emails should be downloaded to the machine running your email client and subsequently deleted from the server, or if they should be kept on the server. The precise area where you may modify this configuration differs depending on whatever email client you are using.

Here are some examples:

For Thunderbird, while using POP3 account – go to the Tools > Account Settings > Server Settings for the account > and click on ‘Leave messages on the server’ option.

For Outlook – Under the option of internet email settings > go to Advanced Tab > and click on ‘Leave a copy of the messages on the server’ option.

When those options are checked, the email client will download the messages locally and also keep them on the server for a specified period of time until they are manually deleted.

This is illustrated in 2-sub options mentioned below for both the clients:

If the ‘Leave messages on the server’ option is not selected, the messages will be automatically deleted from the server when they are downloaded locally by the email client.