It isn't clear to me what you're trying to achieve in the first place. May be you should just stick with webmail.

I finally figured out part of the problem. I can look at my email from server directly from my email program now.

I have email in computer "local" and on the internet. I think I had all the boxes opened and they interacted with each other. I'm going to keep internet box closed when I'm working on computer. This might have been why stuff downloaded.

I have to get used to the new way of doing things. I would be totally lost if I had a smart phone. I have a dumb one  :)

Your new account is IMAP. Your old one would have been pop.

There is a short summary of what that means here.

thanks, my computer guy explained it to me about POP sort of. I really don't understand it.

It's too bad all the mail downloaded in my computer the first day. One day I have to take time to delete it

If your new account is IMAP, deleting the mail will also delete it on the server.

This IMAP Vs POP is important stuff. You need to get the whole synchronized thing in your head or you will end up a very unhappy camper. Because you will delete all your mail.

This is not a subject you can shrug your shoulders over and go "I don't really understand" and keep going. Well you can. But the consequences are not going to be fun.

I learned too late email gets deleted. That's ok. I had too much saved email. thanks for the help. I was really surprised I could see when I wasn't really online.

I think I found the answer. In the Thunderbird - menue, right hand top, there is an option : OPTION. When you open this, a new window appears. Here you can select multiple things. One of them, right hand side on top, is ADVANCED. When you click on NETWORK & Discspace, you find CONNECTION, OFFLINE and DISCSPACE. Click on OFFLINE the button to the right, and thern unclick AUTOMATICALLY, and set it on OFFLINE. I tried this,, shut down Thunderbird, start it up again, and to my joy the symbol left side bottom showed no connection. In my opinion: problem solved.

KATHYJB said

I just got new computer and updated Thunderbird version. I can't find anything in tools to stop automatic download of emails. It even sends email I write to server. I need that fixed too. Everything at my server was divided into folders. I was told not to download all the email I get and I haven't it. I keep things in folders. the first day I opened email program it downloaded everything even things not in the "in" box. It downloaded items in trash too. How do I get this to stop so I can use my email program? My computer guy has been busy. Maybe he can fix, but if it's something simple I need to try and fix. thank you KB