How do I get my emails to download both on my iMac and iPhone the same?

Question

I have recently got an iPhone 5.  I also use Mail on my iMac computer.  How do I get my emails to download both on my iMac and iPhone, the same?  (If I currently fetch my emails on the iPhone, then they don't then appear later when I want them on my iMac and I need to forward them to myself again - crazy!) And can I also receive sent emails on both too?  I need identical email lists on both.  Thank you, in anticipation!

Answer 1

If you are using POP email accounts, this is how they are designed to work.  POP mail gets offloaded from the mail server onto the device used to access it, so it will not show up on another client later as it literally no longer is stored on the server.  It may be possible for you to configure your POP mail account to keep messages on the server, so they will always appear every time you access your mail (from any device).  The downside of this is that most POP accounts have limited online storage, and the messages will never disappear until you manually delete them, so if you are not very diligent at cleaning out read mail, you run the risk of your account filling up.
Really, for what you want, you should switch to an IMAP mail service.  IMAP mail is always stored on the server, not on any one client/device, so it is always accessible from any client on any device.  Given that, most IMAP accounts have much larger online storage than most POP accounts, since the mail is intended to stay on the server.
Check with your email provider and see if you can switch your account(s) over to IMAP.  If not, there are a number of free IMAP providers, such as gmail from google.