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SAVE EMAIL DOWNLOADED TO AN iPHONE OR iPAD VIA POP3 OR A LOCAL iOS MAIL FOLDER
It’s easy to think that an iOS backup would include all the personal data stored on your iPhone or iPad. But Apple explains in a support page that some things aren’t copied off your phone, because they’re stored elsewhere. This includes “data stored in other cloud services, like Gmail and Exchange mail.”
What if you download messages from an email account to your iOS device and they’re deleted from the server? Those emails are gone for good when your iPhone or iPad is restored from backup or dies. Apple doesn’t mention this in the support note or elsewhere, even though it can affect people who store certain messages locally on their devices instead of synced with a mail server.
The main issue is for folks using an outdated method of email retrieval called POP3. POP3 pulls down messages from an email server, but it doesn’t really record the state of messages that remain on a server. Most POP3 configurations download a message then delete it from the server.
The IMAP protocol has almost entirely replaced POP3. It allows synchronization of messages and folders between clients and servers, giving you access to the same messages and message filing organization on all your devices, like Dropbox or iCloud Drive for mail.
Mail largely remains on the server, with some exceptions. You can opt to configure iOS so that any or all of your Drafts, Deleted, and Archive folders are stored locally on a device. (See Settings → Passwords & Accounts → your mail account → Account → Advanced, and tap any item under Mailbox Behaviors.)
This has left a gap for people either using POP3 or local storage for some of their IMAP special folders because if you have a sudden device failure, need to restore a phone or tablet from a backup, or want to migrate from one device to another, this locally stored email is
