Nowadays, it is very common for someone to own multiple devices let it be PC, smartphones, tablets or laptops and for most people, the ability to read and send their emails from all of these devices is important for their work. The simplest way to achieve this is to setup their email accounts in every devices using IMAP protocol. However, the main problem with IMAP is all the messages are stored in the mail server. This will cause the email account to reach the space usage quota sooner or later. Once it happens, it will cause interruption to the user's email service.
So, how do you enjoy the convenience of checking your email on multiple devices without breaking your space usage quota?
Here is how...
Firstly, of all your devices, you need to pick one to act as "Primary" device. It will be the one that store and archive all your old messages so that you can free up the space in your server. The rest is your "Secondary" devices that can only view recent messages.
At the end of this guide, you will have only one primary device and multiple secondary devices.
Let say you pick your work PC as the primary device and you are using Microsoft Outlook as your email software. You start by setting up the email account using POP3 protocol. Once you are done, go back to Advanced tab under Internet E-mail Settings and tick "Leave a copy of messages on the server" and then tick "Remove from server after" and finally key in the number of days that you want the server to retain the messages. How old the messages your secondary devices can view is determined by this number. We suggest 30 days.
Your done with your primary device.
Now, for every secondary devices, set up the account using IMAP protocol. This way, you will be able to access all email messages that are still kept in the mail server.
That's it. You are done.
The caveats
- With this setup, the sent items are not sync. That means, messages that were sent from your work PC is only kept in your work PC. You cannot find them in your other devices. Same goes to other devices.
- You need to do your own backup in your primary device. The server does not keep all of your messages anymore. If you lost them, you lost them forever.
- If you still manage to hit your space quota limit, you need to readjust the days in "Remove from server after"
