I have a new laptop that I intend to use mostly around the house in areas remote from my study where I have my desktop and do most of my computer work. I wanted to get some things from my desktop to the laptop and had the bright idea to simply attach to emails and email from one computer to the other. So I set up email on the laptop with the same email address I use on my desktop. It worked the way I figured, but now they both get all the same emails (don't need or want that on the laptop), and, worse, my laptop now contains my entire, very bloated desktop email catalog. I also find that anything I delete from one is simultaneously deleted from the other. I want to delete the laptop email account without disturbing the desktop account. How do I do that? I'm running Windows 10 on both computers, and the accounts are in Yahoo mail, but I might have loaded the email account into Outlook on the laptop before I loaded it in Yahoo. So it could be on the laptop in two places. Yikes.

You mentioned Outlook, so I’ll assume you’re talking windoze here. Why not just share up the folders from the old machine, mount that share on the new laptop and dispense with the email notion? Simple, faster and less overhead.

quote:

Originally posted by jbcummings:
You mentioned Outlook, so I’ll assume you’re talking windoze here. Why not just share up the folders from the old machine, mount that share on the new laptop and dispense with the email notion? Simple, faster and less overhead.

Frankly, I don't follow you, but it doesn't seem to be what I want to do; I just want to get rid of the email accounts I set up on my laptop without disturbing the original on my desktop. I now realize there are other ways to transfer info from the desktop to the laptop; using a flash drive would be one. I just want to undo what I did to the laptop.

Sign out of the yahoo profile on the computer you don't want it on.


Or you can just change the password and only log into the computer you want it on, and the laptop won't be able to log in since the auto sign-in won't work due to the new password.

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Originally posted by Nismo:
Sign out of the yahoo profile on the computer you don't want it on.


Or you can just change the password and only log into the computer you want it on, and the laptop won't be able to log in since the auto sign-in won't work due to the new password.

But won't the emails still pile up in the laptop (the one I don't want it on) irrespective of whether or not I log in to see them?

So are you using a web browser or Outlook to retrieve your email for each computer?

If you are using outlook, just go into settings

click on account you want to edit.

Go down the page and click delete account.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by smschulz:
So are you using a web browser or Outlook to retrieve your email for each computer?[/QUOTE

On my desktop, the main computer, I usually use Firefox and Yahoo mail. On the laptop, I think I loaded it onto Outlook first, but I know I loaded it onto Firefox/Yahoo as well.

quote:

Originally posted by sig2392:
If you are using outlook, just go into settings

click on account you want to edit.

Go down the page and click delete account.

And you do understand that the same email address is on my desktop as well? My concern is that if I delete that address on the laptop, it will also delete that address on my desktop. They seem to be linked. When I delete an entry on either computer, it is also deleted on the other. What happens if I delete the entire account on one computer? Does it affect the other? That is my concern.

You can unsync the accounts first

1. Open the Mail app.

2. Click/tap on the Settings button at the bottom of the left pane, and click/tap on Manage Accounts in the Settings.

3. Click/tap on the account you want to change mailbox sync settings for.

4. Click/tap on Change mailbox sync settings.

5. Select how often to download new content, and select how far back to download email from on the server, turn on or off Email under Sync options for what you want, and click/tap on Done.

6. Click/tap on Save to apply.

^^^^Now we're getting somewhere. Thanks.

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My concern is that if I delete that address on the laptop

quote:

I want to delete the laptop email account without disturbing the desktop account.

By using a Web Browser for the email - no email is actually downloaded unless you save an attachment or the email to the computer.
So just don't open the email app within the browser.
You really don't have to do anything if you don't want email on the laptop - just don't use it.
It takes up no space or uses any resources - it is just "pointing " to the server.
IF YOU use an application on the laptop like MS MAIL or Outlook then it is a slightly different - just delete the account on that computer and don't use it anymore, it will not delete the actual emails.

^^^^^ To be sure I follow you...

Firefox is a web browser, and what you said in the beginning applies to that; just don't open it and it has no effect on my laptop or its capacity.

MS Mail or Outlook is an app (of Windows 10?), treated differently, but deleting the account there, on the laptop, will not affect the same account on my desktop. Right? Even though deleting individual e-mails on either does affect the other?

quote:

Originally posted by amals:
MS Mail or Outlook is an app (of Windows 10?), treated differently, but deleting the account there, on the laptop, will not affect the same account on my desktop. Right?

Correct. All that does is delete that app's configuration for that email account. (And, one presumes, any local mail store copies--I don't know as far as MS-Outlook is concerned.)

quote:

Originally posted by amals:
Even though deleting individual e-mails on either does affect the other?

That's because when you delete individual emails you're deleting them on the server.

When you delete an email on the server it doesn't "affect the other," per se. The other simply can't see it anymore because it isn't there anymore.

Ok, I think I've got it. Thanks.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:

quote:

My concern is that if I delete that address on the laptop

quote:

I want to delete the laptop email account without disturbing the desktop account.

By using a Web Browser for the email - no email is actually downloaded unless you save an attachment or the email to the computer.
So just don't open the email app within the browser.
You really don't have to do anything if you don't want email on the laptop - just don't use it.
It takes up no space or uses any resources - it is just "pointing " to the server.

Wait a second. This might actually be a good thing. If I leave the account on my laptop, but don't open it, it does no harm to be there, and could actually be a benefit. If something happened to my desktop, I'd still be able to access my emails on the laptop. Seems like a good idea to keep the account there as a backup, yes?

quote:

Originally posted by amals:



Wait a second. This might actually be a good thing. If I leave the account on my laptop, but don't open it, it does no harm to be there, and could actually be a benefit. If something happened to my desktop, I'd still be able to access my emails on the laptop. Seems like a good idea to keep the account there as a backup, yes?

Well, generally that is how most people do it.
Having access to emails on multiple devices is quite common and yes useful.

But just just note if you only need to access emails while online (aka Internet) and using a Web Browser Interface is adequate then you don't need to do anything special except log on.

If you want it simple then don't set up Outlook or MS Mail.
These are applications that run on the computer and can provide some additional functionality.
They require you to actually manually set them up - not just log on to them.
So if you want to keep it simple just use the Web Browser and don't set up the app.
No impact to any machine.

^^^ Great. That simplifies things. Thank you.

And I also just realized that I did not set up Outlook the first time; I simply set up the account in Edge, which is another browser, not Outlook. So it is the same as opening the Yahoo email in Firefox. I guess.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
Having access to emails on multiple devices is quite common and yes useful.

Indeed.

That is the beauty of IMAP: The exact same email, folders and all, available on all devices at all times. Desktop, laptop, tablet, phone: All the same, all the time.

I couldn't believe the amount of push-back we got at work when we started transitioning accounts from POP3 to IMAP. People were utterly confused by email being deleted, marked "read," or moved on one device being deleted, marked "read," or moved on all.

quote:

That is the beauty of IMAP

Yes, and I know you aren't going to like this but with Exchange (on premise or online O365) and Outlook - email is even better.
But IMAP for sure is nice in general and POP3 can make life for IT quite difficult.
Simple syncing and multiple device use IMAP is quite nice - it just lacks some functionality and collaboration features that can be useful in some environments.