Create a new account that uses IMAP (e.g. gmx, gmail, possibly even your existing email provider) and set this account up in the apple devices and in Thunderbird. In Thunderbird, copy the messages you want access to into the new account. Now all the devices will be able to see and share one account and messages stored in it will be visible to all.

You seem to think that you need Thunderbird to be able to access a particular account. Have you not tried adding the account used in Thunderbird to your Apple things?

This site : https://iihelp.iinet.net.au/Email_Settings#toc_2 tells me that iinet offer IMAP so you probably don't need a new account. But you will need a "roaming SMTP server" and it's not entirely clear that this will be available to you, whereas with gmx or Google this is guaranteed.

I know it's not especially helpful or illuminating to say so, but there is no such thing as a "Thunderbird account".

Zenos thank you for taking the time to reply. I understand that there is no such thing as a "thunderbird account" but using Thunderbird is so user friendly and familiar to someone like me who is not that savvy with the background "tech" stuff. I used to use Eudora but that because unstable so switched to TB. Tried M/S Outlook but I really did not like using it. My email is an earlier name@netspace.net.au which is a POP account. I do have a mail account on my iphone and ipad which gets the netspace emails but because its a POP account its only available on the device I'm using. Whereas on Thunderbird on my desktop I have literally thousands of emails in separately labelled mailboxes which I need to refer to from time to time. I have tried copying them and storing on Sandisk iXpand for IOS (for use with Apple devices) but am unable to open them and read it. Basically I need to have my "filing cabinet" of emails with me if I can. I do have two separate gmail accounts but they are for separate businesses and I really don't want them to get mixed up with the netspace stuff. Besides gmail is not very private and I would not have a clue how to transfer my T/bird mailboxes to my gmail accounts. So my questions is still - how can I take all my T/bird mailboxes and its emails with me to access on iphone or ipad from wherever?

Sorry I should have said I have my emails stored in T/Bird in separately labelled "folders".

But the site I referred to tell me that iinet offer IMAP, so you don't have to stay with POP. And they explain why you might prefer IMAP too.

POP and IMAP are different ways of connecting a client to a server. Either can access the same email account. Yes, it's common for us to speak of "POP accounts" and "IMAP accounts" but they are just ways of connecting. The fundamental account is the same. I usually take care to say "IMAP-connected account" and "POP-connected account".

It's unusual to use POP with tablets and phones, simply because they have comparatively modest amounts of storage. It's better to leave messages on the server and just download message bodies on demand.

You might walk into town, or you might ride a bike. In either case, the shop you want to visit is the same one; how you got there is largely immaterial. Think of your account as the shop, and POP and IMAP two different modes of travel.

Try adding the account again in Thunderbird, but let it select IMAP.

I might have suggested staying with POP and simply setting Thunderbird to leave messages on the server, but that wouldn't help with the old messages already downloaded and stored in Thunderbird. You need IMAP.

The gotcha is whether or not iinet will let you use their SMTP server (to send messages) when away from home. Do you have any email accounts set up on the apple devices to know if this works?

Thanks again. I think I know what you mean. I spoke to someone at Netspace last week but he was not familiar with Apple stuff. I had another netspace mailbox that I have not used for years so I tried to set that up on my iphone. It automatically went to pop and would not even give me the choice of Imap. So I turned on airplane mode and set it up using imap and saved it. Now it will send messages but nothing can be received. I also tried moving emails from my gmail a/c to this one - it moved one or two but not all. However the thing is, if I log into this account from my desktop/other - none of the test emails I have sent or the emails I have moved into folders on this iphone netspace a/c shows up. Just a blank.

The other thing that worries me is if I try to add the account to T/b using IMAP - does this mean I have to delete my existing POP a/c? I'm too scared to do this as I could lose everything if it does not choose IMAP. I just got a new laptop so I downloaded T/B to that (hoping to do so in IMAP) and without even filling in any info of my netspace a/c it automatically set it up in..............POP! Again the odd thing is it only has recent emails in there and none of my folders from my desktop. I'm not sure how this happened but I will remove it as I don't want further confusion. Your info is very helpful -I understand that my netspace a/c should be IMAP and not POP - I'm just not sure how to do this without losing my existing info on my desktop. Are you saying that the 'profile' in T/b on my pop account can be transferred to the profile in T/b on an IMAP account once set up? If so - how can this be done?

Ideally, Thunderbird will let you install the same account twice. I have done this with a gmail account - run it both POP and IMAP connected, mainly to identify differences between the two. Generally speaking, this is not a useful thing to do.

Practically, Thunderbird may object to the second instance, complaining that "the server already exists". Users get this message when trying to set up a second (different) account with the same provider, and it is a bug. There's no good reason why it should refuse to operate two accounts on the same domain.

If things go well, you'll be allowed to set it up again using IMAP and it should coexist with the POP-connected version.

However I'm starting to think that it is perhaps an old and creaky service that hasn't been modernized. The popularity of IMAP is very much driven by users now having multiple devices (phones, tablets, laptops) and when that netspace server was first set up, these may not have been important considerations. Frankly, I'm surprised that a phone or tablet even supports POP; it's just not compatible with the few GB of flash memory of portable devices and the concept of downloading everything. However my experience with a Blackberry phone taught me that they don't always fully comply with usual internet protocols; the Blackberry seemed quite happy to download and then discard emails without deleting them from the server, so it wasn't pure IMAP. Your POP mode may have some similar tweaks.

In Thunderbird, at least, you can interrupt the account set-up process and enter the appropriate IMAP settings by hand. ISTR my Android devices had something similar, if you were able to circumvent the automated account setup wizard.

It wouldn't be the first time that a service is available yet not advertised - Yahoo used to advertise POP but also had a covert IMAP service that they asked us not to publicise.

Thanks for your advice. I contacted Netspace tech support who were most helpful and together we set up my account on Thunderbird in imap. So at the moment I have both. It takes absolutely ages to move folders from the pop account to imap and at the moment I'm working thru this but as I have so many email folders - I could be doing this for a month of sundays!

The Netspace person suggested I remove the pop account once I have moved all my folders..... You said you ran both - did this cause you any hassles? Thanks

I ran both together only to compare the two protocols. There's no advantage, and indeed several advantages to having the same account present twice on one computer.

I too would remove the POP-connected account once I was happy that everything I needed was now in the IMAP-connected account. But IMAP meets my needs better than POP. I want to see my accounts on a mix of computers, a phone and a tablet.

Glad to hear you have a way forward.