Importing web-mail for the first time
It's been years since I've run an email client on my PC, but it's time to do it since Verizon bought Yahoo Mail and is slowly dismantling functionality.
Recently installed the latest version of Thunderbird, but before connecting want to be sure I fully understand how all this mail will come down. I have dozens of folders on Yahoo Mail with several thousand emails dating back to the late 2000s.
1. Will Thunderbird download everything at once? 2. Will it retain folder integrity, meaning will it download all the mail messages in a given folder and automatically create the folder in Thunderbird? 3. Or, will I have to download one folder at a time, or create the folder in Thunderbird first then highlight all the emails on Yahoo then pull them down? 4. Will this be a Move or Copy function?
Thanks.
Chosen solution
If you select to use POP you will get the contents of the inbox back to the year dot. Once downloaded they will be entirely independent of the yahoo server.
If you select IMAP you will get everything folder structure included, but it will be fully synchronized, so delete it on the sever or your phone and Thunderbird will follow suit.
Note: The spam/Junk folder is called bulk mail in Yahoo IMAP accounts.
Moving Vs Copying mail to the "local folders" in Thunderbird will allow you to either copy mail or actually remove it from the server using move and make a copy permanently in Thunderbird. At this point I would not recommend doing more than a few mails at a time in moving them however due to some bugs in the IMAP process that can cause issues with the integrity of multiple moves.
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Chosen Solution
If you select to use POP you will get the contents of the inbox back to the year dot. Once downloaded they will be entirely independent of the yahoo server.
If you select IMAP you will get everything folder structure included, but it will be fully synchronized, so delete it on the sever or your phone and Thunderbird will follow suit.
Note: The spam/Junk folder is called bulk mail in Yahoo IMAP accounts.
Moving Vs Copying mail to the "local folders" in Thunderbird will allow you to either copy mail or actually remove it from the server using move and make a copy permanently in Thunderbird. At this point I would not recommend doing more than a few mails at a time in moving them however due to some bugs in the IMAP process that can cause issues with the integrity of multiple moves.
TB = thunderbird.
when you will create an IMAP protocol/access based mail account in TB , then TB will only download a copy of emails from remote mail-server , into/inside the imap based mail-account in TB. To make backup of all emails , create sub-folders under the "Local Folders" , then COPY all emails (from TB mail-account) into corresponding sub-folders under the "Local Folders": "Local Folders" \ "MailAccntName-Inbox" \ "Local Folders" \ "MailAccntName-Sent" \ "Local Folders" \ "MailAccntName-BulkMail" \ "Local Folders" \ "MailAccntName-Draft" \ ...
but if you choose to create POP protocol/access based mail account in TB , then TB will completely-download (aka MOVE) all emails from remote mail server into/inside TB.
becareful with that POP based mail account in TB , if you delete this : all emails will be completely deleted+lost from your TB.
Do Not Delete Any POP Based Email Or Mail Account in Any TB.
if you created IMAP based mail account in TB , then to backup emails : you will have to create LOCAL SUB-FOLDER 1st under the "Local Folders" (for each REMOTE FOLDER) , then go inside the remote mail-server's specific remote folder/sub-folder , & select any email first & then press Ctrl+A to select all emails , and then right click on one of selected email , then select COPY TO , select destination into/inside "Local Folders" > corresponding local sub-folder for that specific remote folder.
in POP based mail-account , TB will automatically completely-download (aka MOVE) all emails from all remote folders , into/inside the TB's POP based mail-account.
To backup , create LOCAL SUB-FOLDER under the "Local Folders" , then go in POP based mail-account's each FOLDER , select all emails in that FOLDER , & right click on any one of the selected emails > select COPY TO > select destination into/inside the corresponding LOCAL SUB-FOLDER under the "Local Folders".
emails in each (remote/local) folder , have to be copied (into sub-folders under the "Local Folders") separately.