Sync Mail across devices

[sluggo]

After several years of using Airmail on my Mac I've gone back to Apple Mail. It seems to work much better with SpamSieve.
I also view mail on my iPhone and iPad. Like everyone I get tons of spam every day. SpamSieve does a heck of a job keeping it out of the Inbox but I still need to get into Trash or Junk to get rid of it.
I'd like to have the discarded emails disappear from all 3 devices when I discard them on one device. As it is now I have to go to Mac and delete them. Then to the phone, then the iPad.
If I forward the 4 email accounts that I have ( 2 Gmail and 1 Yahoo along with another private business email) to iCloud Mail, will deleting the offending messages from iCloud remove them from every device and save me doing it in triplicate?
OS 15.1 Sequoia on the Mac, iOS 18.0.1 on the phone and iPad.

[Paddy]

The forward-to-iCloud would be one solution but perhaps not the most ideal. What I don't understand is why your emails aren't syncing across your devices - Gmail is IMAP only now, so anything you do on one device should sync with the other. I've never had an issue with this (6 Apple devices, all synced) but others apparently have and there are a bunch of things you can try:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254552980?sortBy=rank

This solution from June 2024 looks like an easy one to try first:

Hey Fretnicker, I began experiencing these issues last week and toggling from 'Push' to 'Manual' for the gmail accounts on my iPhone (settings > mail > accounts > fetch new data) solved my issues instantly.

I hope this works for you too.  Good luck!

Full post:

I use multiple gmail accounts on the Mail app/prog -- on both my iPhone & MacBook.  Typically, I have no issues with syncing changes made in either direction and was being thrown when the changes I made on my iPhone (deleting, opening, moving to folders, etc.) were not syncing with my MacBook.

I opened webmail (mail.google.com, in this case) and found that the changes hadn't been made there either.

While other threads/solutions may be helpful for others (making sure iOS is up to date, phone restarted, fetched new data / synchronized accts on each device, toggled from deleted to archived in advanced settings), I was nearly to the point of deleting & adding the accounts back ... nearly, but didn't want to go through the hassle.

I'm sure glad I found this thread.  Toggling from 'Push' to 'Manual' for the gmail accounts on my iPhone (settings > mail > accounts > fetch new data) worked immediately.  Changes made on the iPhone synced with webmail and the Mail program on the MacBook in under a minute.

[sluggo]

Thanks Paddy. I haven't had the opportunity to try anything yet, bet a little hectic around here lately.
Edit: I just went in and changed the accounts over to manual on the mobile devices. We'll let it run a day or so and see what happens.

[sluggo]

The solution in the opening lines of the quote from Paddy appear to be a fix for the majority of the issue. If I manually select all of the offending emails and send them to the trash on either the iPad or the iPhone and then empty the trash, those emails are gone on both of the devices. However, they remain on the Mac desktop.
Not sure if this is because on the Mac, SpamSieve automatically sends offending messages to the trash to await my final disposition but there is no SpamSieve for the mobile devices.
At any rate it's a step in the right direction and I'll take it.

[Xairbusdriver]

However, they remain on the Mac desktop.

Don't forget, the Mac runs on a real computer with lots more power for user-made rules than iOS. For example, Mail on the Mac allows you to set how long junk and deleted emails remain in the 'trash'. You might want to adjust your settings in Mail; "Erase deleted messages: After one day/After one week/After one month". Same for junk messages.

I only have iOS 17.7.1 on my iPhone. I do have the above choices for my Comcast (Xfinity) mail account, but not for (iCloud) Mail.

[sluggo]

However, they remain on the Mac desktop.

Don't forget, the Mac runs on a real computer with lots more power for user-made rules than iOS. For example, Mail on the Mac allows you to set how long junk and deleted emails remain in the 'trash'. You might want to adjust your settings in Mail; "Erase deleted messages: After one day/After one week/After one month". Same for junk messages.

I only have iOS 17.7.1 on my iPhone. I do have the above choices for my Comcast (Xfinity) mail account, but not for (iCloud) Mail.

Things are a breeze on the Mac and Apple Mail with SpamSieve. SS filters and sends to the trash automatically the vast majority of spam. And there are usually well over 100 from the overnight hours when I check mail in the morning. From there it's just a matter of selecting Mailbox/Erase Deleted Items/In All Accounts and everything in the Trash folder is gone in one operation. But that doesn't remove those same spam emails on the mobile devices.
On the mobile devices I use 2 fingers and it grabs everything as far down as I scroll. Then it's Edit/Select All/move to trash. Then on to Trash to delete from there. But that operation does indeed remove all of the offending emails from both the iPad and the iPhone.
Too bad SpamSieve doesn't have a mobile option.