Deleting emails in Webmail

[#1]

At the request of Plusnet I have been trying to delete emails from Webmail but this is proving to be impossible. I can only do one page of 40 emails at a time each taking several minutes and often ending in a "Server Error". My Broadband speed should not be an issue as it is 40 Mb/s. Also my POP3 account on Windows Live Mail is set up to delete emails from the server after 14 days but does not do so - hence the need to delete them manually. I have raised both these issues on the telephone helpline but they had no answer to either problem other than change to Gmail. Can anybody in the Community help?

[#2]

IT's been years since i've used PN webmail or their mail services in general.. does it support IMAP?

If it does you could configure an IMAP client like outlook to access your account. Select your inbox and then just delete all the messages from there. You could probably highlight the first and then CTRL A to select all of them - then just hit the delete icon.

In theory..

[#3]

If @Howard_L  has a POP3 account then presumably the intention is to keep messages on a local computer but remove them from the Plusnet server? Changing the local client to IMAP then deleting all emails will clear them from both in one foul stroke.

[#4]

It seems my free version of Live Mail does not support IMAP so I have to find an email client which does. Any recommendations? It would still be nice to know why the POP3 setting to delete emails on the Webmail server doesn't actually work. Perhaps it may be because I have the free version, but then why offer it as an option?

[#5]

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@Howard_L wrote:

It seems my free version of Live Mail does not support IMAP so I have to find an email client which does. Any recommendations? It would still be nice to know why the POP3 setting to delete emails on the Webmail server doesn't actually work. 

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Can't tell you why it doesn't work i'm afraid - only the server admin would be able to tell you that..

No idea about free imap clients, you'd have to google for that.

Keep in mind as the other guy said though.. if you delete everything using imap it's gone forever on both your machine and the server - but what you see is what you get as you're directly controlling the servers actions.

[#6]

@Howard_L 

Quote:

"Thunderbird is a free email application that's easy to set up and customize - and it's loaded with great features!"

https://www.thunderbird.net/en-GB/

I can confirm it handles IMAP as well as POP3

[#7]

Thunderbird used to be quite basic but gained traction because it wasn't MS or any other giants sofware. I've just looked at the homepage and still can't see a range of brilliant features that make me want to download it.

MS Outlook still works well for me when it comes to features.

[#8]

@7up 

ISTR I started using TB when I moved to Win7 from XP.

I tried, but didn't like, the flavours of Windows (Live) Mail, and basically wanted something fairly simple to replace Outhouse Express.  I didn't really like Outlook when I'd tried it previously as part of the Office suite, so TB seemed to fulfil my needs at the time, and I've stuck with it since.

[#9]

Outlook does have some bizarre quirkes but you get used to it..

Outlook express was just that - an express version of a decent client. Window Live mail i found to be frustrating.

So.. I still use Outlook 2003! Yes it still has a few quirky features and can take a while to get used to when setting up accounts but once it's setup it's rather nice to use - especially as you can request delivery and read receipts. If you have access to an exchange server then you can set emails to be sent at a certain time in the future - or if you leave outook running it'll do it itself if memory serves.

[#10]

Thanks to all who have responded. I at last managed to delete all the older emails on the server by creating a POP3 account on Windows 10 Mail having recently upgraded from Windows 7. By deleting them all from the Inbox of this account they vanished from the server's Inbox and, rather unexpectedly, from the Deleted folder as well. I had to enlist the help of Google to set up a POP3 account and, even then, could find no way of configuring it to retain files on the server for a specified length of time. I suspect there are some default settings but I can't find what they are.

I may also have found why I was accumulating emails on the server. I have more than one email account and one of them was configured to retain copies on the server and only delete them when deleted from my PC. I am in the habit of storing emails in various folders and don't review them for deletion as often as I should.

I will now have to research whether to change my email client and/or use IMAP or POP3. I suspect I shall end up with either Thunderbird or MS Outlook as I'm not sure I can configure Windows 10 Mail to my liking. I don't much care for it's user interface either.

[#11]

This is a recurring theme. I'm not prepared to waste any more time trying to access a system that's not fit for purpose.

I have tried to comply with PN's request to reduce the number of emails in my inbox but their system won't let me.

If PN want the size of my inbox to be reduced they will have to do it themselves.

[#12]

@Gemini2 

You could use a (free) email client such as Thunderbird to access your emails which would make it far easier to selectively bulk delete any emails you no longer need, and save those you do.

Bear in mind if you don't do it yourself and leave it to PlusNet, you will lose ALL your email, but maybe that's OK for you.

EDIT:  I made the suggestion of using an email client because I assume from your other post on the subject that you are using WebMail.