MobileMe: An email message deleted in a Mail application may immediately not appear as deleted in other Mail applications or devices
Summary
Although new MobileMe messages are quickly delivered from the server to your iPhone or iPod touch, these devices may not be rapidly notified of other changes you might make to your mailbox. For example, a new message sent to your MobileMe account will quickly show up (with a badge over the Mail icon) on your iPhone or iPod touch, but if you have read or moved the message in Mac OS X Leopard's Mail application, the badge icon on your iPhone/iPod touch may take up to 30 minutes to reflect the change. This can happen unless you manually check for Mail messages on your device.
Products Affected
MobileMe Mail
Deleting messages in Mail in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
For information about how to delete messages in Mail click here or here.
Message deletion is a bit different between devices due to the variety of deletion preferences available in the Mail application. In most cases, mail deleted via Mail in Leopard will be moved to the local Mail Trash Folder where it may be indefinitely available for restoration. Changes to your mailbox made by deleting messages may not be immediately reflected on other devices. Although it may look like your message was never deleted when after deleting a message in Leopard Mail and subsequently viewing your mailbox on an iPhone/iPod touch, the message has indeed been flagged for deletion and the changes will be usually be reflected in 15 minutes or less. For more information about this behavior, please see this article.
Other times, you may notice that a message that you have deleted from Mail in Leopard is still visible in your MobileMe Webmail inbox. Don't worry: The mail you deleted has been flagged for deletion, but it may take up to 30 minutes for those changes to be reflected online via MobileMe Webmail or Mail.app on your iPhone, iPod touch, or in another email application. If you still do not see the changes reflected on other devices, you may need to quit and open Mail on the Mac you originally used to delete the message.
Deleting messages from Mail on an iPhone/iPod touch
For information about how to delete Mail messages on your iPhone or iPod touch see this article.
Email deletions made on your iPhone or iPod touch will be immediately sent back to the server and reflected in Mail in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard the next time email is checked for (manually or automatically). Messages deleted on your iPhone or iPod touch are still set to be stored in the online IMAP Trash mailbox and will be only be expunged based on your preferences or by manually using the "Erase Deleted Messages" function.
Sometimes, your deleted messages may not be sent to the Trash due to a preference setting. Based on your Mail application settings, deleted mail may either be kept in the Trash mailbox (folder) on the IMAP server and kept indefinitely, or may be deleted immediately and not easily recoverable. See this article to help troubleshoot your mail deletion settings.
If you think you might have inadvertently deleted a large amount of MobileMe email, please see this article or contact MobileMe Support immediately to see if there is a chance for data recovery.
About messages deleted via MobileMe Webmail
A deleted message's status is reflected immediately in Webmail, but the new message badge icon on your iPhone or iPod touch may not rapidly reflect this change. Since the message has already been delivered to the iPhone or iPod touch, it may still be visible for a brief moment the next time you check your mail on the device. As your iPhone or iPod touch connects to the server you will notice the previously deleted mail message quickly appear and then disappear from your inbox. This will only happen with messages that have been flagged for deletion or moved to other mailboxes (folders) via other devices. Similar behavior can occur in Mail in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard if the last "Get Mail" check occurred before deleting the message in Webmail. Messages deleted via Webmail will be sent to the the IMAP Trash mailbox (folder) of your account. The behavior of this folder is set by the preferences of the email application you are using to connect to MobileMe Mail, such as Mail in Leopard or the Mail application on an iPhone or iPod touch.