Use COPY, not MOVE. Then, highlight the copied messages and delete.

Thanks for the quick reply. I will assume that you are correct, even though for over 30 years, until now, I have been using 'move' with no problems. But what about all the emails I deleted, they are back also. Was there a problem with the latest update to Thunderbird, or did it make changes to the procedures that must be used that I was unaware of?

I am not an IMAP guru, and a review would require detailed steps. No, thunderbird has not changed how IMAP is handled. All I know is that the steps I mentioned have been successful for capturing messages from an iMAP account to local folders and then removing from the server. Others may see this thread and have more in-depth feedback.

May I ask why you chose this two-step method instead of the 'move to' method? As I said, I have used the 'move to' method for over 30 years, with no problem until now. I'm an old fart (retired from the Air Force 37 years ago) and make no claims to being an expert on this or anything else, but to me this would seem to indicate that something has changed within the program. This is a disaster for me. I now have over 6,000 supposedly moved or deleted emails mixed throughout my inbox. And as I mentioned they are all grayed out like I had read them. But I cannot just attempt to delete all the greyed-out messages (assuming that somebody can shed some light on why my 'deleted' emails also came back) because there are also a good number of emails that I have read but did not attempt to move or delete them. I would not want to arbitrarily delete them also. I hope this is making sense. Please bear with me, I am battling the early stages of dementia (three active brain cells, and one of them is on life support)

First, I encourage you to log onto your online account to see what is there. Second, I respond to questions on what will WORK. I am not the person to explain WHY something works or doesn't. What I will do is see if I can locate someone with more IMAP expertise. What I recommend is to list, in detail, your steps. You refer to messages being moved and deleted (two separate results) and also to ALL being restored. A detail list of the steps, clarifying what you did, may prove helpful. Thank you.

I apologize for throwing all this stuff at you. it's just that you are the only one that noticed me floating in my life boat. Sorry. And I really appreciate you trying to locate someone with more IMAP expertise. I'm not sure what you mean when you say that I should log onto my 'online account' to see what is there. All I know is that I click on the desktop Thunderbird icon and it takes me online to TB. Yeah, I are dum. As far as my steps, well, I sorted all my emails by Correspondents, then looked thru them to determine which ones I wanted to send to local folders and which ones I wanted to delete. I selected the ones to send to a local folder (clicked on the first one, held down shift and clicked on the last one) and if there were any within that batch that I didn't want to include I held down Ctrl and deselected them, then right clicked on the batch and selected 'Move to' and clicked on Local Folders, after which I selected and clicked on the folder I wanted. When I did this the selected emails disappeared from my inbox and the total number of emails decreased accordingly. As far as deleting emails, I used the method above to select the emails, then hit 'delete' on my keyboard. With the same results. When I opened TB this morning all of the deleted and moved emails had returned and the total had returned to the number of emails I had had prior to deleting and moving anything, grayed out but with a line thru them. When I stopped screaming and crying I decided to close and reopen TB, in the vain hope that everything would be as it should. BAD move, the deleted and moved emails were still there, still grayed out but no longer had a line thru them. If I had not restarted TB it would have simplified knowing which ones to delete (though probably trying to delete them again would not have worked any better the second time around). I did check a number of the local folders to see if they did contain the emails I tried to move there and as far as I could tell they had been moved there. Or more accurately, for whatever reason they were copied there. I hope this explains everything well enuf, if not please let me know what further information is needed.

re :May I ask why you chose this two-step method instead of the 'move to' method?

Why use 'Copy to' instead of 'Move to':

An Imap account can only display whatever is on the server because imap folders synchronise with server folders. When you use 'Move to, there is much jibber jabber with server and when emails are 'moved' out of an imap folder they are removed from server. So if something goes wrong in a transfer you could lose them. It's all about risk.

If you use 'Copy to' and something goes wrong then you can repeat the action as emails will still be on the server. Less risk.

re: I'm not sure what you mean when you say that I should log onto my 'online account' to see what is there.

How to tell if emails are still on server:

You would need to logon to your webmail account via a browser. You have an email address which you set up with a company that provides email addresses. This might be an email address you have with whomever provides your internet - an internet provider. Such as BT, Comcast, AT&T, Virgin, etc or you may have signed up for a free email address with gmail or yahoo etc. They will have a website where you can logon to your webmail account to see emails directly on the server. To logon to see webmail account, you would use your username which usually is your email address and a password.

Thunderbird is an email client program which has server settings enabling Thunderbird to access the server and to download and send emails via the server settings. It's likely you provided that password to auto connect to server and Thunderbird stored it.

Setting up Delete for an Imap account:

In Thunderbird In 'Account Settings' Select 'Server Settings' for the account When I delete a message: There are three options. 1. select 'Move it to this folder' and choose the imap 'Trash on account/email address'. Some servers call the folder that contains deleted items 'Trash' and others may call it 'Bin' or 'Deleted Items'. You must choose the correct folder. This is the best option to use for imap accounts. I suggest you get this set up.

2. 'Just mark it as deleted' - this option should grey out the email and put a line through it. Edited: This does not put email in Trash, so could prove an issue with what is still on server. Same as number 3 option below.

3. 'Remove it immediately' - this deletes email from folder, but by-passes the Trash. This might prove to be a problem in some cases such as gmail accounts. The email does not get sent to Trash, only the gmail label has been removed, so email is still on server and can be seen in the 'All Mail' folder. You would need to either reselect another label or remove from the 'All Mail' folder in order to properly delete the email off server.

Regarding the folder that has greyed out emails - the emails you 'Moved' to a folder in 'Local Folders' account.

In 'Local Folders' account. Select some of those emails you moved to that account and confirm you can read the contents of those emails. Then we can be sure they were moved correctly.

In webmail account - use a browser like Firefox to logon to the website of provider of email address. Do you still see all those 'deleted' emails in the webmail account ? If no then they have been removed off the server. This is expected.

Background info: When you delete an email from a folder eg: Inbox - that email gets 'marked as deleted' and normally it disappears from Inbox and reappears in Trash or gets a strikethrough depending upon settings. That email is still in the original folder, marked as deleted and usually hidden.

In reality, that 'folder' is an mbox text file. Emails are downloaded to it and written to it one after the other. So it's a single text document where you can imagine each email is like a paragraph. When email gets 'marked as deleted', it's like putting a red slash through the unwanted paragraph. After a while, it gets messy with all those unwanted emails/paragraphs. You have to tidy it up and that is done by compacting the folder. It's basic housekeeping maintenance. It properly removes all those previously deleted emails; tidies up the file; reduces file size; reduces the risk of getting a corrupted file.

How to compact folder:

• Right click on folder and select 'Compact'

Whilst it's compacting (takes only a few seconds), do not attempt to select anything and never exit Thunderbird. It usually tells you it's compacting in the bottom Status bar and also tells you how much space you recovered.

Did compacting the folder remove all those deleted emails from the Message List?

I really appreciate all the info, and I am still trying to wrap my head around it. WOW! While I am doing that, I have another question. I have a backup computer, and it also uses Thunderbird. It has been asleep during all of this, and I am wondering if I dare wake it up to see what might be happening with it. Thunderbird was open when I put it to sleep, so it will automatically open it when I wake it up. I always make sure that they are never online at the same time. Might there might be something on it that might shed some light on what's going on here on my main computer? Any thoughts on this? Am I making any sense?

I have not yet had the nerve to try compacting anything. Now you are suggesting that I compact my inbox folder, right?

I did check my webmail account, it is with Spectrum and I have accessed it before but not for quite a while. I contains FAR fewer emails than Thunderbird, and I have not created any local folders there.