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How can I make an email account readonly?

bernd.wechner
bernd.wechner
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We use several IMAP accounts as archives and I want to be able to search them in the global search and look through them, but safeguard against accidentally deleting an email there for example. In the ideal the whole account or nominated folders in it are flagged read-only and cannot be modified. Alas cannot find a way to do this in the UI nor with Google's help. So hopefully there is a way and someone can help me find it, and if not, convert it to a feature request!

We use several IMAP accounts as archives and I want to be able to search them in the global search and look through them, but safeguard against accidentally deleting an email there for example. In the ideal the whole account or nominated folders in it are flagged read-only and cannot be modified. Alas cannot find a way to do this in the UI nor with Google's help. So hopefully there is a way and someone can help me find it, and if not, convert it to a feature request!

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bernd.wechner
bernd.wechner Question owner
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Alas making the folders readonly is not an option, they reside as accounts on an Exchange server run by the business which serves them to me via IMAP at home, so I can search these archives. I'll try those addons as they sound modest comprimises. Thanks for the tips!

A shame mind you that a whole account can't be marked as "Readonly" so even if it's receiving messages form another client or being delivered I could turn this client (Thunderbird) into a secure viewer for the account.