Home email account storage query

[condor]

I've had the same email account, from my ISP, for over 13 years and probably have about 500 emails stored in my PC inbox from over that time. Nothing too interesting, but usually ones where people have sent pics as an attachment. Previously when someone has tried to send a very large photo it hasn't been received as the file was too big. That hasn't happened for a long time, but I thought there was probably a restriction on how many/size of emails you could have stored in your PC inbox.

I recently bought a laptop, mainly to use when I'm away from home, and earlier today thought I'd see if I could access my home email account. I can but was more than a bit surprised to see that there were nearly 8000 emails in my inbox. It seems that although I've been able to delete emails on my home PC which is where I always access them - my ISP has kept all of them.

Do ISPs have a maximum email account storage quota? Are you allowed a certain amount each month/year?
Why has my ISP kept the emails that I thought I'd deleted?

Can anyone help answer my questions please?
Thanks

[bitchstewie]

I'm guessing you're using POP3 which has the option to leave the message on the server, so basically you're just downloading a copy.

And yes, depending on the email provider you're using they will very often (almost always) have some sort of quota.

[condor]

Thanks

Looks like I'm going to have to do some maintenance ( ie delete 7000 odd emails) from the main ISP site. It seems I've got 15GB of storage, so plenty in hand. I'd just like things to be neat and organised.

A further complication is that my main home PC has a problem getting emails now I've accessed the email account from my laptop.

[MissChief]

condor said:

Thanks

Looks like I'm going to have to do some maintenance ( ie delete 7000 odd emails) from the main ISP site. It seems I've got 15GB of storage, so plenty in hand. I'd just like things to be neat and organised.

A further complication is that my main home PC has a problem getting emails now I've accessed the email account from my laptop.

If you're using POP on both then once an email is downloaded it counts as 'read' so won't appear on the other device. Of course this then means if you use both devices regularly you can end up with email conversations split across both devices. Not ideal! This is why IMAP is better if you use more than one device and in your situation I would recommend you change to using it if you can.

[condor]

How would I find out if I'm using POP or IMAP?
The home PC is using Outlook Express and what I was given by my ISP provider in 2001 - now Virgin Media, was NTL.

I'm currently away from home, using the laptop. The email layout is different getting it from the Virgin Media website ( similar to gmail not Outlook ). I noticed there was a spam section and strangely enough emails from pistonheads were in it, whereas my home pc gets those emails delivered. I rarely get spam emails on my home PC but the spam box had loads of penis enlargement type ads in.

I find it all very confusing

[MissChief]

If you look at the account settings the server details will either say pop.xxx or imap.xxx, that's how you know.

If you want to change then TBH the Virgin help pages or calling Virgin yourself might be your best bet. They should be able to guide you through the changes. I know as a Sky broadband tech we do email stuff as well.