Yes, you can mix POP and IMAP. You can use a filter to move all messages to a local folder, as you state. And you can set under syncronization&storage to delete all messages more than a day old. Or you could just delete every day. I did notice an addon for Protonmail Encryption status, but that may not be what you want.

Thanks for your reply David. So are you saying moving to local folders will remove the messages from the server on the next sync? So if I check for mail every 5 minutes it will delete messages every 5 minutes?

Or are you saying the setting to delete more than one day is the minimum time frame a message can be deleted?

When you say "You could delete every day" do you mean I have to log on to the webmail site and manually delete messages?

I did see an add on or two on my last search, but nothing that allowed me to set specific contacts to receive encrypted/signed and everyone else signed only. I'll take another look.

UPDATE: The Protonmail extension is just an icon on the tool bar that shows the encryption status of emails.

thanks

I have to ask why you would sign up for proton mail with the limitations that you are here ask someone to remove for you. Just use a pop mail provider. Proton mail obviously does not meet your needs.

Hey, sorry Matt, I'm not following this part of your reply... that you are here ask someone to remove for you

One of my current pop providers interferes with about 80% of my emails. They never reach the recipients. There really aren't any privacy focused pop email providers and I've used over a dozen. No chance in hell I would use the mainstream ones. Completely untrustworthy. Although, proton mail did share personal information of a french person when asked to.

My options are Proton and Tutanota at this point, neither of which support pop. Several of my contacts use proton so proton <-> proton are partially encrypted, better than my current situation.

If I can get emails deleted from an IMAP server without having to manually log on to the web interface periodically then proton mail will be fine - that really is the main issue.

The add ons I use have nothing to do with proton mail.

The only reason I'm asking is because the free proton offering doesn't provide IMAP/SMTP. I have to pay for the service and see if it works. If it doesn't I have to chase down a refund, which I might never get back.

So I'm not sure what limitations I'm asking someone to remove for me? I'm just asking if it is possible to have IMAP emails deleted automatically and if the version of Thunderbird I am running makes any difference to that specific need.

how do I delete emails from an IMAP server?

For a normal IMAP server you'd simply delete them or move them off of the server. This should be obvious.

However, Proton Mail Bridge is a piece of software running on your own computer. Therefore I don't understand what all the fuzz about IMAP being insecure is about. https://proton.me/support/imap-smtp-and-pop3-setup

You'd better check with Proton how their Mail Bridge application works.

<sigh> I get that my posts are long and tedious. And my command of the English language is lacking.

The question was meant to read "How do I automatically delete emails from an IMAP server (without having to log onto the server with a web client via a browser or other third party program), whilst leaving a copy on my local PC every time my Thunderbird client checks for email".

I'm not a fan of "cloud". There is no cloud, only someone else's server. I don't want my email left on someone else's computer. I want it kept on mine.

I contacted Proton before I posted here. I contacted them twice in 3 weeks and got no response.

Bridge takes care of the encrypt/decrypt part of things. I had a read about it on their site and it does say "store messages locally". What I'm concerned about is that if I delete it off the server it would delete the local copy and that's not what I want.

And at present it seems the only way to delete them from the IMAP server is to do it manually, and not have it done automatically when thunderbird checks for new mail every 5 minutes.

Proton's T&Cs say they typically do not give refunds. So I was hoping to get some understanding before I went and spent my money.

IMAP by its very nature is insecure and high risk. Email is stored on servers I have no control over, that can fail, be hacked, sold off, backed up or a number of other things.

This is a flawed assumption, since there is no Protonmail IMAP server which stores all your messages. Protonmail is inherently a cloud based service. Using Mail Bridge it can be used with a real email client instead of a mobile phone app or webmail. Mail Bridge basically is a local IMAP/SMTP server providing an interface an email client can understand. However, Mail Bridge neither stores decrypted messages nor does it change the way Protonmail works. That is all mail is stored on their servers. Since everything on the Protonmail servers is encrypted, I don't understand what the concern is.

These articles may help. https://proton.me/blog/zero-access-encryption https://proton.me/news/bridge-security-model

Chris, I respect your point of view, but mine is different.

All I want to know is can I get all my emails on to my PC and have them removed from the IMAP server, without me having to go through any additional steps to get rid of them, and having been removed from the server, still retained on my PC.

If the answer is "There is no way to have local email on your PC (regardless of whether there is bridging software in between), retained when deleted from the IMAP server. Then so be it, that's the answer.

I'd rather not be dragged into a philosophical discussion about email technologies, and I acknowledge I made the first jab, and I am sorry for that.

I was frustrated as I've been through dozens of pop providers and they are all inadequate to my needs, and I ranted when I got confirmation from several people that GMX are interfering with my emails.

You know what, to hell with it. I'll buy a month subscription and set it up on a spare PC and see if I can get it to work. If not, I know where I stand.

The imap account folder will display whatever is on server in those folders. Imap accounts synchronise with server, so if you delete an email it gets deleted off server. Likewise, if you move an email out of an imap folder into a folder in the 'Local Folders' mail account, you are removing it from the imap folder. When folder synchs with server, it updates the server. To all intents and purposes this is telling the server the email no longer exists, so server will delete it. If you have setting to expunge Inbox on exit then file is properly cleaned up and all traces of the 'deleted email are gone. Email is now in 'Local Folders' mail account which is stored on computer.

You would need to ensure that all imap folders are set up to store fully downloaded emails and not just headers.

In Account Settings > Synchronisation & Storage Top right click on 'Advanced...' button and make sure all the checkboxes for all folders and subfolders are selected. Under 'Disk Space' Select option 'Synchronise all messages locally regardless of age'

You could set up a filter : Filter when getting new mail - filter before junk Classification If FRom,TO, Cc, Bcc, = your email address Move message to eg: 'Inbox' folder in the 'Local Folder' mail account.

However, you may consider it to be less risky to ensure all messages get fully downloaded into imap account before you move them.

In which case, set up filter, but choose 'Manually Run'. Then you would choose folder and select to run filter on folder. If you have different filters - say one called 'Family-move' to move to different folders, then you can select eg: folder called 'Family' and manually Run filter on Family to move emails sent to you into the 'Family folder on Local Folders'.

If you have a few folders with loads of emails and this is the first move to get them out of the imap folders. Set up filter(s) to run manually - go into 'Offline' mode to stop any synchronising whilst you are performing a lot of moving. Once you have got all the bulk of emails over then you are really only needing to run the Manual on the imap Inbox to put in Inbox in Local Folders, which makes it a lot easier.

You could set up the imap account Copies & folders' to put sent emails in 'Other' and choose 'Sent in Local Folders'. But some server auto add sent mail into server Sent folder. You would need to set that up and see if server auto adds them to the server 'Sent' folder.

re :If the answer is "There is no way to have local email on your PC (regardless of whether there is bridging software in between), retained when deleted from the IMAP server.

As David says - You can put mail into the 'Local Folders' account before deleting it from the imap folders. Then it is stored on your computer.

UPDATE INFO - IMPORTANT

Gmail and any server that operates like gmail is a different kettle of fish. Example: gmail stores all emails in the 'All Mail' folder. So moving an email will only remove a label, so email does not appear in eg: Inbox. Email did not get put into 'Trash', so still is on server in 'All Mail' folder.

In these cases, the emails only get deleted off the server if the emails are put into the server 'Trash' folder.

If the server you use operates like gmail, then I suggest you 'Copy' emails into folders in 'Local Folders' mail account and then hightlight all copied emails in the original imap folder and click on delete to put them in server/imap Trash folder.

I've located this info:

• https://proton.me/support/using-folders-labels

This sounds like Proton Mail operates like gmail. I strongly advise you do not use 'Move' - use 'Copy' to get emails into 'Local Folders'. Then delete emails from imap folder so they go into the imap Trash folder.

Set up Account Settings to auto empty trash on exit.

@Toad-Hall thank you so much for the detailed instructions. I've purchased a one month subscription and I'll start testing shortly. @david. Thank you also for your assistance.

The way I've set it up with my pop accounts is I have about 300+ folders, all off Local Mail. Every email I receive from someone I have received email from before has a filter to move it then delete it from the pop server. I never delete anything from my local storage; you never know when you will need it, so once I receive an email from a new sender I create a filter for it.

I have 5 pop accounts, but two will need to be shut down because they are with GMX who interfere with most of my emails.

I'm hoping to simply have filters copy emails from known recipients to existing folders.

PC gets rebooted at 4am on Sunday mornings via scheduled task.

Update: Well, it seems Matt was right, but not because of IMAP.

Of the 500+ contacts I email only 1 is a proton mail user. Encryption is automatic for proton-proton emails. For emails to non-Proton addresses one must use a password.

The IMAP side of things worked fine. However, when sending to a non-Proton mail user one must specify a password for the email. Other than adding extra steps to sending an email that's no big drama.

The recipient is sent an email with a link to the password protected email. The problem is I have to contact the recipient ahead of time to let them know what the password is. If I use a static password, which if it is long and complicated might not be an issue. If I change the password regularly I have to contact the recipient each time.

No-one I spoke with was interested and said "If I receive an email that has a link that requires a password I would either think it was malicious or I would just delete it out of hand. That's an unacceptable process".

The second issue is that the email is never downloaded to their client, or if they are using webmail, to their hosts server - it remains on Proton's servers. If the email is not opened within 28 days it is deleted. I couldn't get an answer from Proton as to how long it is kept if it is opened within 28 days.

So the recipient can't get the email, and can't keep the email indefinitely.

I'd have to agree with them. That is an unacceptable situation.

So thanks for all the help but it looks like Proton is not a practical solution for my needs (Which is simply get the emails on to my client, off the server and onto the recipients client).