Prevent deletion of email from servers

My home network includes a desktop PC (Windows 10), laptop (Windows 10), and my iPhone 6. I use Thunderbird on both the desktop and laptop, and both are set to leave email on the servers for all my email accounts, which are POP. When I view email first on the desktop or laptop and erase it there, email still appears on my iPhone. When an email arrives and I view it first on my iPhone, if I erase it from the iPhone, it doesn't appear on the laptop or the desktop PC. What setting am I missing on the iPhone so that the iPhone doesn't remove emails from their servers?

IMAP would be a better choice, if your email account supports it.

This might help:

Get help if you have issues using a POP email account with more than one device - Apple Support

Thanks, all, for the suggestions. I should have mentioned that I'm using the default mail app in the iPhone 6 and Thunderbird on my laptop and desktop PC. No such thing as a Thunderbird app for iPhone. It seems that no matter what I do, the iPhone deletes email from the server whether I use IMAP or POP. This problem occurs with my two Comcast accounts, a Gmail account, and a Yahoo account. I've discovered that Gmail makes it difficult to use POP--it's obvious Google prefers IMAP. Still, I can't figure out why the iPhone deletes mail from the server, even when it's set not to do so.

I apologize for the late response in this thread--I usually respond quicker.

When I can tinker with it, I'll try again and double check the settings, as suggested.

No apologies necessary - work on the issue when you have the time.

Gmail requires you enable POP3: Enabling POP - Gmail Help
Most providers prefer IMAP because you can manage mail in all folders between devices and the server
POP3 only delivers items in the Inbox

For POP3 setups, there's usually a setting in the eMail client that controls whether or not mail is left on the Server when it's downloaded

This sounds fairly close to what you're trying to do
IMAP at work to read, POP3 at home so TB will add mails to my archive? | Thunderbird Support Forum | Mozilla Support

It doesn't directly answer the question about deleting eMail, but it might give you some ideas

Bill
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Thanks, Bill and Wullail.

For me, I had to delete my email accounts on the iPhone and then re-create them as POP accounts--no small task. You have to enter jibberish email account credentials first so that the iPhone can't recognize them. Then it will allow you to create an account manually, choosing either IMAP or POP. If others are reading this and trying it, it's the only way to create a POP account on the iPhone 6 in the default iPhone 6 mail app--in my experience.

I set all my iPhone mail accounts to keep emails on their servers for a month.

In Thunderbird on my desktop PC and laptop, my emails accounts are also POP, matching the month-long "keep emails on the server" setting.

Gmail apparently doesn't want users to use POP--its "recent" setting loads the last 25 emails. That's a royal pain for me because I keep up to date on email and I don't need to see 25 at a time.

I tested all this last night, and this seems to work.

Thanks, all, again.

Glad you got it sorted gogreen.

I've never used the Login recent:emailaddress trick on a mail client. Did you opt to not use it then?