Sent mail not being automatically deleted

[#1]

I've been using Outlook for about a decade. Recently have been geting messages from plusnet saying my 1Gb server allocation is full

Years ago I set up the account to leave sent messages on the server for 14 days. But it seems that's not been working and they are being retained indefinitely. What did I miss? See attached settings.

I can go to webmail and delete them but it seems I can only delete 40 messages at a time so its taking forever. Is there as way to delete messages prior to a certain date?

[#2]

You've missed nothing other than the very questionable practice of mixing the use of POP3 and IMAP access to the same mailbox.

• POP3 stores its sent items LOCALLY ONLY
• IMAP clients place sent items on the IMAP server
• POP3 clients DO NOT access the IMAP sent items folder ... therefore that setting has no bearing on sent items

The above being the case, the sent items on the IMAP server were not sent by the POP3 client and will never be removed from the server by the POP3 client.

The mixed use of POP3 and IMAP is frankly dangerous.  It is all too often used as a lazy way to manage server storage by the unsuspecting and as you have found can cause big issues.  Using POP3 clients leads to sent items being dispersed around each POP3 client / the IMAP server, rather than being a cohesive record of all that you have sent held in a single repository.

If you want to access the same mailbox on multiple devices and send from any other them, the only sound approach is to use IMAP on all of them ... and on one of them implement a proper archiving and back-up strategy WHOLELY under YOUR control.

As for deleting the sent items on the server, you should be able to do that on one of the IMAP clients you are using.  If the only such client is webmail, you can change the number of items listed on a page in the settings, but too many will deliver a performance hit.  Remember that by default, a DELETE is actually a move to the trash folder.  The following might be useful.

Culling mailbox contents

If you need to clean out your mailbox, may be because it is over quota, then as well as tidying up the inbox, you need to also look at the SENT ITEMS folder and then afterwards clear out the TRASH folder. However some times webmail performance can make this process very tedious, particularly if the delete action (actually a move to the trash folder) fails.

If you primarily want to delete emails, you can mitigate delete performance issues by doing an "immediate" delete (rather than a move to trash for deletion later) by holding down the SHIFT key when pressing the DEL key. This works in both webmail and most PC based email clients. WARNING SHIFT+DEL is not recoverable so be certain absolutely, that you do not need the email before pressing the buttons!

Alternatively, in webmail (Round Cube) Settings -> Server Settings there are some options worth exploring controlling how deletes are performed...

1. Flag the message for deletion instead of delete
2. If moving messages to "Deleted Items" fails, permanently delete them
3. Compact Inbox on logout

Setting these options and using them together will avoid the over heads of moving items to the trash folder when you wish to delete them. They will simply be greyed out and remain in the inbox list. After logging out of webmail, they will then be removed from the mailbox.

Whilst this might be highly proficient, it needs to be used with care, for when they are gone, they are gone. Note also that Plusnet house-keeping clears out the trash folder weekly.