One clue that were no longer living in the '90s is that we now access our email not from a single computer planted in an office or den, but from a multitude of devicesa work computer, a home computer, an iPhone, an iPad, an iPod touch, and so on. And few things are more frustrating than finding some of your email on one device but not on another. Likewise, you might encounter email that you deleted on one device that stubbornly reappears on another.

The easiest way to manage this problem is to transition away from any POP (Post Office Protocol) email accounts you have to an IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) account. The major difference between the two is that with an IMAP account any changes you make on one devicesuch as deleting email or moving messages to a folderwill be reflected on other devices. So, for example, if on your iPhone you delete a message from Joe, when you access that account with your Macs email client, you wont see Joe's message because youve already taken care of it. In contrast, with a POP account, you manage your email after youve downloaded it to your device; in this case, if you delete a message, youve deleted it only on that device, and when you view your email on a different device, the message remains.

These days its almost impossible not to create an IMAP account by default. When you sign up for iCloud, Gmail, or Yahoo, you get an IMAP account (although you can create a Gmail POP account for free, and one on Yahoo if you pay for its $20-per-year Mail Plus service). Many ISPs also offer IMAP accounts as the default. If youve had the same email account for years, however, you may still be on POP; if so, check out our tips for converting a POP email account to IMAP, or contact your ISP.

Save yourself from spam

Junk mail is another age-old problem, but its now compounded because were receiving email on multiple devices. Most Mac email clients have some variety of spam filtering built in, and if that filtering proves to be inadequate, you can solve the bulk of your junk-mail problems by using C-commands $30 SpamSieve. In contrast, iOS devices dont offer any variety of message filtering, which can lead to a spick-and-span Mac but a junk-encrusted iPhone.