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Does Thunderbird store emails after you delete the email from Outlook?

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  • Last reply by Rick

Gina Aylor
Gina Aylor

I have several MS 365 accounts that I have added to Thunderbird to backup. Now that all the emails and data is in Thunderbird, I would like to deactive the MS 365 accounts completely as the company is closing down. I need to keep the emails as archives for several months in case of an issue, but the MS 365 account will no longer exist. Will Thunderbird delete all the emails once I deactive the 365 accounts or is there a way to store them permanently?

For record, I already tried to add them to my Outlook app on my Windows computer and back up a pst file, but it is not bringing over all the years of data like Thunderbird did. Only recent items.

I have several MS 365 accounts that I have added to Thunderbird to backup. Now that all the emails and data is in Thunderbird, I would like to deactive the MS 365 accounts completely as the company is closing down. I need to keep the emails as archives for several months in case of an issue, but the MS 365 account will no longer exist. Will Thunderbird delete all the emails once I deactive the 365 accounts or is there a way to store them permanently? For record, I already tried to add them to my Outlook app on my Windows computer and back up a pst file, but it is not bringing over all the years of data like Thunderbird did. Only recent items.

All Replies (1)

Rick
Rick
  • Top 10 Contributor

If the account is an IMAP account, messages are synchronized with the Microsoft server, so deleting them in one place deletes them everywhere. This is not the case with POP accounts. If you do not know what kind of account you have, go to account settings, click on "server settings", and see what server type is identified at the top of the right pane.

For each folder of messages that you want to save, right click on the folder name in the folder pane, then select "Copy to ..." and copy the folder to local folders.

For special folders (inbox, drafts, sent, trash, etc.), you will have to create a corresponding folder in local folders, then select all the messages in a folder, right click, and copy those messages to the corresponding folder that you created in local folders.

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