Tips and Tricks for using POP on multiple computers

When you connect to a mailbox using the POP protocol, your local computer will download all the emails from our mail servers, then delete them to free up space.

While this will mean that your mailbox is maintenance free, once one computer has downloaded your email, other computers you may be using will be unable to access the same email.

You can solve this by configuring your email software to "leave a copy of the email on the server". This means that any additional computers that connect to the mailbox will also be able to see, and download, the same email.

Note: You will not be able to synchronise your draft or sent email messages with this method.

The process is quick and easy. This article explains how to leave a copy of your email on our servers for the most popular email software.

Outlook Express

Step 1: Open Outlook, click Tools, then Accounts in the drop down menu.

Step 2: Select your email account and click Properties.

Step 3: Click the Advanced tab. At the foot of the page tick the box marked Leave a copy of messages on server.

Quick Tip: To avoid your mailbox filling up, you should also configure this screen to remove mails from the server after a number of days.

Step 4: Click OK and Close to finish the wizard. This should be repeated on each computer that accesses your mailbox.

Outlook 2003 and 2007

Step 1: Open Outlook, click Tools, then Account settings from the drop down menu.

Step 2: Select your email account and click Change.

Step 3: Click More Settings

Step 4: Click the Advanced tab. At the foot of the page tick the box marked Leave a copy of messages on server.

Quick Tip: To avoid your mailbox filling up, you should also configure this screen to remove mails from the server after a number of days.

Step 4: Click OK and Close to finish the wizard. This should be repeated on each computer that accesses your mailbox.

Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail

Step 1: Open Windows Mail/Windows Live Mail, click Tools, then Accounts in the drop down menu.

Step 2: Select your email account and click Properties.

Step 3: Click the Advanced tab. At the foot of the page tick the box marked Leave a copy of messages on server.

Quick Tip: To avoid your mailbox filling up (which will prevent you from receiving more emails), you should also configure this screen to remove mails from the server after a number of days.

Step 4: Click OK and Close to finish the wizard. This should be repeated on each computer that accesses your mailbox.

Thunderbird

Step 1: Open Thunderbird, click Tools, then Account settings in the drop down menu.

Step 2: A list of your accounts will appear, expand the account you want to edit and click Server Settings.

Step 3: Tick the box marked Leave messages on server

Quick Tip: To avoid your mailbox filling up, you should also configure this screen to remove mails from the server after a number of days.

Step 4: Click OK to save your changes. This should be repeated on each computer that accesses your mailbox.

Mac Mail

Step 1: Open mail, Click Mail, then Preferences in the drop down menu.

Step 2: In the Accounts section, click Advanced.

Step 3: In the section marked Remove copy from server after retrieving a message, select After one week.

Step 4: Click the red button to close the window. When prompted, click Save changes. This should be repeated on each computer that accesses your mailbox.

Related articles