re : about two years ago I was told by Everyone.net that they did not renew their domain name, meaning they were not like google, yahoo or hotmail, just a domain name providing mail services(hope this make sense?) I was sent instructed to use a link to get Thunderbird so I could view and retrieve all my emails from them,

The info you say sounds like they told you to retrieve emails two years ago. When did you get the email saying to use Thunderbird to download emails?

The password is the same one you were using to logon to webmail account. You can only set or modify a password via the webmail account accessed via a browser. If you cannot logon to webmail account then there is usually a 'forgotten password' link you use and follow instructions to regain access. Then you reset the password. Then you check that new password works and gets you access to the webmail account. Once this is working, then you can use that same password when creating a mail account. Pop mail accounts can only access and download anything in the server Inbox. Imap accounts can synchronise with various folders on the server to download copies, but you need to make sure you are downloading full copies and then get copies from the imap account folders into 'Local Folders' mail account, so you have a copy that is independent of server in Thunderbird.

Info on server settings:

• http://www.everyone.net/support/kb/serverAddresses.html

If you only have a load of emails in the 'Inbox' and 'Sent', the you could use POP account. It will download a copy of everything in the pop account Inbox, Suggest you create folders in pop account and sort mails to empty the pop Inbox. Then logon to webmail and move all the emails in the server 'Sent' folder into the 'Inbox'.

In Thunderbird click on 'Get Messages' to download all those 'Sent' emails. Now you have sent emails in the 'Inbox'. In Thunderbird, create and send an email and a 'Sent' folder is auto created. Now move all the 'sent' emails from pop Inbox into pop 'Sent' folder.

Pop server settings I suggest you try first. It is better to try the SSL settings first.

• server name: pop.everyone.net
• Port: 995
• Connection Security: SSL/TLS
• Authentication Method: Normal Password
• username: full email address

SMTP:

• server name: smtp.everyone.net
• Port: 465
• Connection Security: SSL/TLS
• Authentication Method: Normal Password
• username: full email address

OR

• Port: 587
• Connection Security: STARTTLS

If you have a lot of emails in various folders you created in webmail account then it would be easier to use IMAP.

• server name: imap.everyone.net
• Port: 993
• Connection Security: SSL/TLS
• Authentication Method: Normal Password
• username: full email address

Set up to synchronise all folder to download full copies. Good info on imap:

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/imap-synchronization

Great day Toad-Hall

I must first say thank you 1000000xxxx, I truly appreciate the time you took to put together such a reply; clear, basic, and accurate based on my confusion. You truly understood EXACTLY what I said. I will follow your suggestions today and keep you posted. I now understand what “POP” and “IMAP” are used for, and I believe the latter is best as I did have lots of sent and received emails.

I don’t remember my password and when Thunderbird asks for it, there is no way to check, “forgot my password.” I also want to add that I can see the list of my emails, I just can’t opened them because of this factor. Lastly does this mean I have an email account with Thunderbird because I loaded the emails from the previous account?

Thanks so much in advance. You have been a gem

re : Lastly does this mean I have an email account with Thunderbird because I loaded the emails from the previous account

No. Thunderbird is just a program you downloaded to run on your computer. It is an email client type of program and this means you can use Thunderbird to connect to various servers for various email addresses to read and send emails. Thunderbird is not a server and does not provide email addresses.

A 'Mail account' in Thunderbird is a term used to describe setting up a connection for a specific email address that already exists on a server. If you had created an account with google and got an email address eg: xxxxx@gmail.com then in Thunderbird, you could create an existing mail account for that gmail email address to connect to the gmail server to read and send emails via the gmail server but using Thunderbird to do the job.

This means you can have several email address on various servers and be able to see all of them in one view in Thunderbird. This means you do not have to logon to each individual webmail account via a browser.

re :I don’t remember my password and when Thunderbird asks for it, there is no way to check, “forgot my password.”

The 'forgot password' is not something Thunderbird deals with. You have to know the password, so you can instruct Thunderbird to save it and use it each time when Thunderbird needs to connect to server.

The 'forgotten password' link would be located on the logon webpage which you would use to connect to the webmail account. All resets and modifications etc to do with passwords can only be done in the webmail account for each email address. No email address can reset a password by any other process. After all, the people who issued the email address and store the emails on their server, do not want anyone able to change such an important thing as a password via any other means than directly within the account.

Everyone.net logon to webmail would be via the link below and you would have been using this to access those emails in the past. Top right of webpage at link, there is a 'Login' option. You would then see where to enter information and also a 'Forgot your Password?' link.

• http://www.everyone.net/support/kb/login.html

re : I also want to add that I can see the list of my emails, I just can’t opened them because of this factor.

This tells me you have already created a mail account in Thunderbird for an existing email address. It sounds like you created an imap mail account.

If you right click on the mail account name (which is usually the email address) folder in Folder Pane and select 'Settings', it will open the 'Account Settings' window. Select 'Server Settings' and top right it will say the 'Server Type' either pop or imap.

Imap accounts are like a virtual view of the folders on the server. It means the emails are stored on the server and you can access those emails via webmail account using a browser or an imap account using an email client program on any computer. As an example, it means if you used a computer at home and a different computer at work, you could set up an imap account on each computer and to access same email address on the server and still see all the same emails. But if you deleted an email using computer A then when you connect to server on computer B, that email will get removed because it does not exist on server.

Imap folders synchronise with the server to show what is on server. Emails can be fully downloaded or only headers downloaded.

If only headers downloaded, then when you select to view an email, Thunderbird needs to connect to server to download the email to a temporary cache on your computer to faciliate viewing of email. Email is not stored on your computer; there is only an index file containing header information which allows Thunderbird to select the correct email on server. The benefit is you are not using up a load of harddrive space on storing emails. The downside is you cannot read those emails in 'Offline' mode.

If you download full copies then Thunderbird would create mbox text files, so each downloaded copy is appended to eg: Inbox mbox file. This means Thunderbird program has a copy of the email on your computer and you can read it even if you lose internet connectivity or go into Offline mode.

However, because imap folders constantly synchronise with server, you cannot rely upon any imap folder being a true Copy or Backup. You would need to get copies out of the imap folders into eg: Local Folders mail account so they are stored in a folder that cannot and does not synchronise with any server.

If imap folders connect to an empty server folder, then everything will get deleted, because imap accounts only show what is held on server. This can happen when someone changes their webhost, but keeps email address. They simply change the server settings in the mail account to point to another new clean empty server with new webhost and then wonder where all the emails went. That's why you would download full copies of emails and get them out of the imap account before changing the server settings.

In your case, I'm not certain if you still have an account with Everyone.net as you mention it was a couple of years ago. You would have to get access to your webmail account on Everyone.net using a browser to check those emails are definately on the server.