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unable to load copy of email account profile onto Thunderbird after change POP to IMAP

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  • Last reply by Matt

rhodedendron
rhodedendron
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Technical support at my email provider The Phone Coop changed me from POP to IMAP and backed up a profile folder of my Thunderbird account, but now he cannot find a way to load the profile back onto Thunderbird . The reason for the change was because I only had POP, I was not able to get access to all my incoming and sent emails on webmail through The Phone Coop home page. I would not only like to fix the problem but also share the instructions with technical support at The phone Coop!

Technical support at my email provider The Phone Coop changed me from POP to IMAP and backed up a profile folder of my Thunderbird account, but now he cannot find a way to load the profile back onto Thunderbird . The reason for the change was because I only had POP, I was not able to get access to all my incoming and sent emails on webmail through The Phone Coop home page. I would not only like to fix the problem but also share the instructions with technical support at The phone Coop!

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Matt
Matt
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I suggest you start by going back to using the original profile, as that was where things went badly wrong.

Once you have the original pop account/profile back. Open account setting and change the account name by adding a 1 to the end. This will ensure the account wizard will not balk at the duplicate account names. Now simply add the account again using the wizard and specify the IMAP option when it is presented.

You will now have two accounts visible in Thunderbird. The original pop account and the IMAP version of the same thing. Drag and drop of emails works to move them around between accounts, but limit yourself to a few hundred at a time as IMAP is not a file system and might loose some if the chunks you bite off for it to move are too large.

You can then use the accounts action button in the account settings dialog to remove the old account whenever you are ready.

Note that both accounts will be active. so you will see new mail in both accounts until you remove one.

I have a gmail account in Thunderbird configured as pop and again as IMAP so I can test things and it has never given a problem. I just have to instances of the same account