AOL MAIL...On Mac...What are the best options??

[adammusic]

I have 2 aol mail accounts that i use in mac mail. What are the best options for using them. Imap or pop? What about mailbox behaviors? store messages on server?

 

[squeakr]

It can be a matter of taste. I prefer IMAP when the option is available, but it can have more overhead than POP and I prefer it for accessing mail across multiple devices (also if configured with idle it then has push rather than solely fetch capability). As to whether to leave on the server or not, if IMAP is being used, I prefer to if the ISP doesn't mind and provides enough storage, this way all devices have access to the same folder structure and things can be marked correctly as read when retrieving across multiple devices. If using POP, you will end up with everything fragmented across multiple devices.

It all boils down to how you plan to use it as that can make a big difference, such as across multiple devices, need for instant mail access, archiving, etc.

I didn't even think AOL still offered anything.

 

[adammusic]

I just use it on my mac & on my iphone. Just to send and receive emails. Nothing for work. I just deleted all my old saved sent & trash emails. So basically starting fresh. I want my mail sidebar to be clean. After switching the server settings on & off I had a bunch of deleted messages folders.

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& i do notice my phone gets some emails before my computer. Phone works better than computer. I want both to work the same & good.

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I'll use imap. should i store sent messages on server? should i move files to trash after deleting? should i store deleted messages on server?

 

[adammusic]

this is insane. I search in finder for a file by my name & it returns all my old mail files. which i tried to delete permanently on aol.com & they are still there.

 

[squeakr]

If you were not leaving them on server and downloading a local copy then those are the downloaded archives saved on your Mac, which is why I prefer leave on server, although then you don't have offline access to your emails for reference, which can be handy. I would say move to trash and have trash set to delete after a certain time period that way you have a failsafe period to recover anything you may have accidentally deleted. I would do the same thing for Junkmail, that way you can recover something that might have been tagged accidentally.

 

[logana]

[/COLOR]& i do notice my phone gets some emails before my computer. Phone works better than computer. I want both to work the same & good.

Your iPhone will be set to "push" emails when received by the AOL server - Apple Mail only checks periodically depending on the setting in the account panel - is every 3 minutes still the default.

The simplest way to improve everything would be to get rid of AOL and use a proper email service.

The AOL mail servers are unreliable and cause password prompts on Apple Mail - painful