Emails from before May 2022 missing on webmail

[#1]

Just noticed that 3 of my 4 mailboxes have almost no emails in Webmail prior to May 2022 (maybe one from 2021 and one from 2020). I didn't receive any warnings on my primary email account about exceeding 75% or 100%. Emails are accessed using POP on phone set to leave on server, and WLM on PC set to only remove from server when deleted from the deleted items. They are all still in WLM. Has anyone else experience this, or knows what might have gone wrong?

[#2]

Using mixed email clients (POP3 on PC and IMAP on webmail) is likely to lead to confusion.

If those emails are on the POP3 clients, but not in webmail, you can bet that the POP3 clients have removed the items from the server.

It is always better to use IMAP clients everywhere and then apply YOUR control to how items are archived to a local folder and removed from the server.

[#3]

It must have been a one off WLM glitch as it had worked as expected with the settings I had up until May 2022 and seems to have worked as expected since. Reason I use POP is to have a thinned out Inbox on my phone compared to PC/server but I expect there are better ways to achieve that.

[#4]

If my understanding is correct, the downside of this is that any emails sent through POP3 on your phone will not get saved on the mail server, so won't be visible (or deletable) from your IMAP serviced PC. Instead they will sit and slowly clog up your phone.

[#5]

@Baldrick1 

That is one of several fundamental complications of accessing a mailbox from multiple clients where one or more is POP3.

EVERYTHING on POP3 is local to the client; in respect of sent items, it only has those items sent from that client.  It does not see those sent by an IMAP client, nor those sent by another POP3 client.

A wise man would avoid POP3 entirely.

As for keeping the inbox thin for working on a phone, I would not fuss: these days phones have more than enough space and power to manage sizable mailboxes.  If keeping things lean is really desired, then proper housekeeping using an IMAP client on the main computer is a better approach.  It leaves the user in control.