How to Stop iPad from Checking EMail only one Account?

[NSSGuy]

Using iPad3, stock iOS 8.4. and stock mail app.

I have two years of old emails from school on my iPad, and after I moved on, the school closed the account. I never used Outlook, only my iPad, my android phone, and the webmail interface to their GMail-hosted email service. (i.e. there's no pst file I can export and archive)

I'd like to keep the emails, but tell my iPad to stop checking that account so: (1) I don't have to "OK" the popup message about the password and (2) the "last updated" note at the bottom of the message inbox will resume updating (it's now stuck on the last time that school account was updated).

Thanks in advance for your ideas...

 

[giradman]

Using iPad3, stock iOS 8.4. and stock mail app.

I have two years of old emails from school on my iPad, and after I moved on, the school closed the account. I never used Outlook, only my iPad, my android phone, and the webmail interface to their GMail-hosted email service. (i.e. there's no pst file I can export and archive)

I'd like to keep the emails, but tell my iPad to stop checking that account so: (1) I don't have to "OK" the popup message about the password and (2) the "last updated" note at the bottom of the message inbox will resume updating (it's now stuck on the last time that school account was updated).

Just for starters, how many accounts do you now have on your iPad (e.g. I have 3 - iCloud, Yahoo, and RoadRunner for my ISP)? I'm assuming that you have an account setup for the school? If so, why not just 'delete' that account on your iPad (presumably your previous email messages are being kept on the school's servers and/or on the Gmail servers?). Dave

 

[NSSGuy]

Just for starters, how many accounts do you now have on your iPad (e.g. I have 3 - iCloud, Yahoo, and RoadRunner for my ISP)? I'm assuming that you have an account setup for the school? If so, why not just 'delete' that account on your iPad (presumably your previous email messages are being kept on the school's servers and/or on the Gmail servers?). Dave

Thanks for the reply. While my emails may be on GMail servers, they are no longer accessible to me, as my login has been cancelled. If there is a backdoor to get to them, I am unaware of it. (Sorry I should have been more clear in my original post.) I assume if I delete the account on my iPad I will have no further access to those emails.

NSS

 

[twerppoet]

Bad news, bad news, not so bad news.

First bad news. There is no way that I know of to keep an email account on the iPad but not have it try and check email. Even if you switch it to manual, it's still gong to try and check every time you open the Mail app.

Second bad news. Because Gmail is an IMAP account, not all your email is going to be on the iPad. IMAP is heavily dependent on the server, and the iPad only keeps the most recent emails for each folder synced to the iPad. You're older emails is 'probably' no longer there, and since you can't get back on the account it is no longer possible to retrieve it.

What good news there is. You can move emails from your account on the iPad to a folder in another account. You do this by opening the folder, choosing edit, selecting each email you want to move, choosing Move, then selecting the folder you want it to be moved too. You'll only see folders for the current account by default, but if you tap the Accounts button at the top left you can select other accounts to move the email too.

It's a tedious way to do things, but since you 'probably' don't have access to the entire two years of emails it should be doable in less than an hour, or you could just move a few whenever you have time until it's done.

Without access to the original account or the information on a different device or computer (which may have more options), I can't think of any other way to archive this information, at least not within the Mail app. There may be third party apps that will access and archive folders in Mail, but I haven't found any.

 

[NSSGuy]

What good news there is. You can move emails from your account on the iPad to a folder in another account. You do this by opening the folder, choosing edit, selecting each email you want to move, choosing Move, then selecting the folder you want it to be moved too. You'll only see folders for the current account by default, but if you tap the Accounts button at the top left you can select other accounts to move the email too.

I went online to another GMail account and created a folder (OK, a label) for this purpose. I then went back to my iPad and checked mail twice to ensure that new folder was available in the other account. The process you described worked as advertised, with the emails visually "swooshing" into the new folder on the new account. Then I got the message, "Unable to Move Messages" "The message could not be moved to the mailbox [title of new folder]" and they were still in the original folder.

A brief Google search suggests others get this error when they try to delete messages and their account settings are for archive instead, or they just need to reset the Email app.

I appreciate your thinking through this, and if you have anything else to try, I'm willing!

 

[twerppoet]

I don't have any other ideas, except to try a different account. Gmail does some unusual things with IMAP. For instance, while Mail on the iPad does its best to treat Gmail's labels as folders, they really are labels. IMAP does not support labels. Google tacked this onto their IMAP implementation, and it's caused issues with Mail in the past.

So, it's possible that an iCloud, HotMail, or Yahoo account will work even though the Gmail account did not.

Or it might not work. It's been a long time since I did this myself, and I only did it with a few emails.

 

[twerppoet]

Also, make sure you can actually view the full emails you are trying to move. You might only have previews loaded (enough to show the email in the list). In that case the email is not on the iPad to be moved, and will fail when it tries to access the server for the full version to move.