This section discusses how to change your Apple Mail setup from POP to IMAP so
that you can use SpamSieve for iPhone Spam Filtering. A similar setup will
also work with other mail programs.
- Choose Preferences… from the Mail menu and click on Accounts.
Your account(s) will be listed at the left of the window. If it already
says IMAP or iCloud under your account, there’s nothing more that
you need to do.
- If it says POP, you will need to disable the POP account and create a
new IMAP one. Click on the POP account and make note of the contents of
the Server Settings (if present) and Account Information tabs.
Then click the Remove now button to remove from the server any
messages that you’ve already downloaded.
- Click the + button at the bottom of the window and follow the steps
to create a new account. Choose IMAP for the account type. For the
server and login, enter the information that you noted for the POP
account. (Note: Some providers use a different incoming mail server
name for IMAP.) Put “IMAP” at the end of the account’s description so
that you can tell this account apart from the old one.
- You should now be able to check for mail, and Mail will be using IMAP
instead of POP. There will be two sets of mailboxes (Inbox, Sent,
etc.) in the main window. If desired, you can go to each of these
mailboxes and Option-drag the messages from the old mailboxes to the IMAP
ones. Holding down the Option key when dragging the messages will cause
Mail to copy the messages to the IMAP server. Your original messages
will remain in the POP mailboxes on your Mac in case something goes wrong.
- Go back to Mail’s Preferences window, click on the POP account, and
uncheck Enable this account (in the Account Information tab, or
the Advanced tab on macOS 10.11 and earlier). You will be using
the new IMAP account instead, although the old POP settings, and any
messages that you didn’t transfer to the IMAP mailboxes, will still be
available should you want to go back to the old setup.
- On your iOS device, tap on Settings ‣ Mail. For each of your
accounts, tap on the account name. At the top of the account settings it
should say IMAP or Exchange. If it says POP, you will need to
deactivate that account on the iPhone (by sliding the switch next to the
Mail setting) and then choose Add Account to re-add your account
as IMAP or Exchange.