I'm not sure if you have an IMAP or Pop mail account. If it's a Pop mail account then a copy of all emails are already stored on your computer. So, even if you end up with no access to download any further emails, you already have a copy. But you can get them copied over to Local Folders and then remove the Pop account.

If it's an IMAP mail account then you may find access gets removed when new person takes over. You will need to get copies of those emails into Local Folders account.

The best method is to make sure you have full copies of all downloaded emails and then get copies of emails into your 'Local Folders' mail account.

You can do this for IMAP and Pop accounts.

• Create some folders of suitable names in 'Local Folders' mail account ready to receive emails.
• Select a batch of emails - click on first email - hold down Shift key and clickon last email, so they are all emails in between are highlighted.
• Right click on highlighted emails and select 'Copy to' and choose the correct folder in 'Local Folders' account.
• I suggest you do this in smaller batches, as trying to do hundreds in one go may lose connection after a while.

Always use the 'Copy to' and not 'Move to' because move means a deletion off server which is not desireable for person taking over and if something goes wrong in the process, you might lose emails, using 'Copy to' means you would be able to repeat the action.

Thanks for the reply. What I would like to do is to find the 'Advanced Settings' screen/pane/whatever. I've found a couple of 'Advanced' buttons within settings panes, but they don't have the entries shown in the manual. Thunderbird on Ubuntu (or all Linux ?) looks very different.

I already have a tar of the complete historic mailboxes. If I can just take the account offline so that it never connects I can read emails that I dealt with when I was chairman. I suppose I can do it under 'Local Folders', but not having access to 'Advanced Settings' is the main issue.

Can you post a screenshot of the advanced settings, or post a URL of what you were reading? that may help.

re :they don't have the entries shown in the manual. What manual ? Maybe a link to that online manual would help to know what it is you are looking for.

You say "but not having access to 'Advanced Settings' is the main issue." What exactly have you been told to do in the 'Advanced Settings' which are probably the 'Advanced Preferences'?

If you have an imap account then it's designed to synchronise with server. Some servers push emails to connect using Idle to an imap account. It's been a topic since Imap was created that it's not really possible to set one imap account to be offline and 100% guarrentee no attempt to connect with server.

In Account Settings Select 'Server Settings' for the account You can uncheck settings to not check for new messages etc. But it may not stop attempts to connection to server.

You can go into 'Offline' mode, but then no account can get emails. So not exactly desirable.

You can deliberately remove the stored password for that account, so connection would always fail, but you may then suffer from repeat requests to enter password. You may find that annoying.

• Settings > Privacy & Security
• Scroll to Passwords section
• click on 'Saved Passwords'
• select all the relevant saved passwords for the account, both incoming and outgoing and click on 'Remove'.

There is only one method to ensure you retain access to emails and that is to get all emails copied into 'Local Folders' account. Then there is no connection to server. Emails really are stored on your computer. You retain full access.

'Advanced Preferences' is probably refering to the Config Editor, but I doubt that would help. But at this point I do not know what it is you are looking for in the Advanced Preferences.

• Settings > General
• Scroll to bottom and click on 'Config Editor'.

The 'Manual' page is: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/advanced-panel-settings-in-thunderbird and what I am looking for is supposed to look like this: https://assets-prod.sumo.prod.webservices.mozgcp.net/media/uploads/gallery/images/2016-12-13-18-06-55-5ba0fb.png

The only 'Avanced' button/item I can find is:

    Items for Offline Use
    Choose mail folders and newsgroups for offline use.

followed by a list of my email accounts that are expandable to select sub-mailboxes.

I have found an option to work offline but that takes all accounts offline.

On my Macs I use MailMate that does allow accounts to be offlined individually.

What version of thunderbird are you using?

The image you post is old - pre version 78. The Article is very out of date by at least 6 years. The location you are talking about in current versions is called 'Settings'.

Settings > General It has the sections : System Integration, Scrolling,Language & Fonts, Incoming Mails, Files & Attachments, Tags, Reading & display, Updates, Network & Disk Space, Indexing.

These are the default settings and preferences.

The image may be old, but it's the one I get from the Help menu. I had assumed that my Ubuntu updates would also keep Thunderbird up to date. I'm currently on 115.18.0.

In Thunderbird you can use either of the following to check for updates. Help > About Thunderbird It may offer a button that says 'Update to a version number' or a 'Check for updates' button.

Settings > General Scroll down to the 'Updates' section. This area tell you what version you are using. It also offers a 'Show history' of updates button. Click on the 'check for updates' to see what it finds.