KMail re-downloads POP3 emails that are supposed to be deleted

[Jörg Schaible]

On Friday, 11th April 2025, 15:49:31 CEST MoC wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> 
> I am currently struggling with KMail 5.24.5 ignoring my delete-emails-
> after-30-days setting and even re-downloading all emails repeatedly. I am
> currently dealing with approx. 1300 unread emails as a result of this issue.

Well, since you said you're using POP3, so I ask myself, how can you ever re-
download emails? This is not how the POP3 protocol works. If a client 
downloads an email with POP3, it is supposed to move these emails physically 
from the email server to your local client. So, how can they be ever be re-
downloaded?

I know, that some providers offer to keep a local copy of an email even if you 
use POP3 to download them, but that's nothing KMail should take care of. It 
cannot know that your server provider violates the contract, i.e. KMail will 
again download all available emails from your server with the next request and 
filter out all the duplicates if you're lucky.

Therefore it won't have any effect, if it's deleting your emails locally, but 
it is definitely not KMail's fault.

A server that keeps the emails should be accessed with IMAP and nothing else.

Regards,
Jörg