1. No idea. A very very long time on Dial-up internet months or years possibly. Minutes if you were connected to a fibre backbone. The speed and quality of your connection are critical. Phrased as you have, I could ask you how long it takes to drive from Durbin to Paris. There are a load of variables in both cases and no simple answer.

2. Are you talking about getting you mail or something about installing. I do not understand I don't think. POP email are downloaded one at a time and a record of the server reference for that mail is kept. One of the issues with flaky connections is the same mails may be downloaded over and over as the fetch restarts at the last recorded position after failure.

3. No. The term in the specification is "mail drop" at a practical level most providers use what they call the inbox as the mail drop for POP accounts. But technically the mail drop should include all incoming mail including spam and many providers do not offer that with POP instead offering a sanitised inbox style

4. Complete garbage. The connection is usually to the same server using the same wires and the same encryption. Security in this is not specific to protocol. A poorly secured mail server will be just a poorly configured regardless of the protocol you use to fetch your mail for reading.

Thank you for your reply, that is helpful and appreciated,im getting a better idea of how TB works and i struggle to understand things and also put what i mean into clear sentences,if you have the patience can I clarify in case ive misunderstood?

- by 'installing' i meant the very first time i set up the account and TB starts to download all the mail. I am trying to find understand what happens if the connection fails suddenly in some way. I suppose im thinking of when I download a file and the server drops and the download fails and you have to start over. But i take from what you said that once the account is made it will just down load, possible over days, whenever it connects to the server. And that its ok to stop running TB, turn off the machine, and come back to it, or if my pc crashes or net connection fails, its not a major problem, that the main problem would be it repeating downloads, (which could be major with 4gb).

- is it better then , to prevent repeated downloads, to have email removed immediataly as it is download, and not tick the 'save on the server option' at all?This feels very daunting. If i do this, is it also possible to make back ups of while it is still downloading? in case my pc or connection fails mainly.

- I am still stuck understanding how i can download my folders from the server if i use pop3. can i send the contents to the inbox and then would they be downloaded too?

-I have quite a few folders so considered using imap but am concerned that I wont be able to tell what has downloaded fully and with all attachments downloaded. and,that when i delete folders or mail,that I may find that i only have copies of headers and not the full emails. but would impa be a safer option here? and is there a way to make sure that everything is fully downloaded so i can back them up and remove from servers knowing that its all fully there? I want everything off and backed up properly and may only need to access mail on one other device and then only to check daily incoming.

-im pleased pop is secure! many thanks for any help to get going using TB, its a bit daunting.