Saving and deleting emails

You're rather vague. If you want all mail on your PC, then a POP account is best. All messages download to the PC. The concept of deleting, yet keeping, mail requires special personal oversight that is beyond an email client.

Thanks for the reply, I need to have my emails stored on the computer and not saved by the email client. That way as my 1gb storage is used up, I can delete emails on the server to regain space, whilst still keeping them on my home PC. Another contributor to this forum has said that Thunderbird can do this.

To be clear, that feature is ,available with most email clients; Thunderbird makes it easier. To do this, you need to set the account up twice, once as a POP account, and once as an IMAP account. On the POP account, set it to leave all messages on server and to recheck for new messages periodically. Then, just use the IMAP account for regular email interaction, deleting as desired. Leave the POP account alone, as it just serves to retain copies of messages.

Hi David, not sure how to set up two accounts, have you got a dummies guide to doing that?

It's not fancy, and I don't mean to confuse you. Just first set up the POP account at Add Account>email and enter name and email address and specify POP. Don't enter password until prompted. Then, click to 'account settings' and click 'server setting' and tick the box to leave on server until you delele them. The default setting is to check mail every ten minutes. Next, repeat the process to set up the same account, but this time specify IMAP (I think thatis the default) and you will then have both accounts in Thunderbird. If you want to keep all sent messages on PC, set the POP account as default. That is no guarantee, but it helps.

I also encourage you to familiarize yourself with thunderbird. This URL may help: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/getting-started-thunderbird-main-window-supernova

I tried setting up the pop account all went well, but it only shows current emails, but does not show any folders I created (car, finance). Will the IMAP account show these?

POP only handles the inbox. If all messages originate from inbox, then you could 'prime the pump' originally and COPY all secondary IMAP folders to the POP inbox so that all online messages are in the POP inbox at the onset. From then on, all messages would originate at inbox, and when you moved to other folders, it wouldn't matter. That is the best solution I can think of to keep all incoming messages. Online, you could have in different folders, while the POP account retained all messages in one folder. Over time, that file may become huge and you may need to devise other steps to manage it, such as archiving the folder each year.

Thanks for that, it was most helpful. Glad you reached out to me.

I was glad to assist. The dialogue helped me as well, as I had never considered that strategy. It will work well. :) best wishes.

I was slightly confused by the initial request and had to read it again.

For clarity: 1. Webmail account is the one you use via a browser to directly access email stored on the server. 2. Thunderbird is a third party email client program; with correct username and password, it can access the server where emails are received and stored.

You can use Thunderbird to create POP and/or IMAP mail accounts.

POP accounts can only access the server Inbox and download whatever is the server Inbox into the pop mail account Inbox. You can choose to download emails and remove those from server OR choose to download emails and leave a copy on the server. A Pop mail account is stored on your computer in your computer User Account within a Thunderbird profile. A Pop account is completely independent of the server. The Pop account folders do not synchronise with any folder on the server. This means the copy you have in Thunderbird may have all your emails displaying whilst the webmail account may have had half it's older emails deleted to increase available server quota. You can create folders in the Pop mail account to organise and store emails. You would be responsible for periodically creating a backup of your Thunderbird profile folders, but it's easy to do and can be answered in another topic.

'An IMAP account 'operates differently. IMAP accounts can only display whatever is on the server - that same view you see via logging on to the webmail account via a browser. IMAP accounts expect you to leave all emails on server. So, all emails are stored on the server and imap account folders have same name as those on the server. Imap account folders synchronise with folders of same name on server, so they can display a mirror image of whatever is on server. You can choose to download all or some emails to your computer, there are a few variants available. Emails that are fully downloaded store a copy on your computer, but you should not believe it is a true independent copy because it will update constantly to only show whatever is on server. In other words if you logon to webmail account via a browser and delete a load of emails then when imap folders synchronise with server those emails will disappear/get deleted from Thunderbird because it can only display whatever is on server. But it can be used to create an independent backup.

What are the choices you have if you need to keep copies of emails stored locally, yet need to delete emails off the server to increase server quota:

Either 1 - create a POP account as it does not synchronise with server and all you can download full copies that are completely stored as a true copy on your computer. In Thunderbird, Account Settings > Server Settings - if you choose to 'Leave messages on server', then all messages are left on server at the point of download, so you can logon to webmail account and delete all your older emails to create some space. Maybe keeping anything really important or recent emails. Once you have got a full downloaded copy - organise emails into suitable folders and immediately create a backup to an external hard drive or another drive on computer etc. It's always a good idea to have more than one copy as you would not be relying on server to provide it.

OR 2 - 1. Create an IMAP account, synchronise and download full copies of all emails for all folders. 2. Create suitably named folders in the 'Local Folders' account (it's an account created by default used to store email copies completely independent of a mail account and server on your computer) 3. Highlight batches of emails in imap folder - use the right click 'COPY -TO' option and choose a suitable folder in 'Local Folders' account. 4. Check you can read those copied emails, so you know it's a good copy. 5. Then, if desired, you can delete the copied emails from the Imap account folder, which in turn will delete off the server regaining server quota space.

OR 3 This option is creating two mail accounts but each use different protocols. Create a POP account, so it can download whatever is in server Inbox and store full copy on computer completely independent of server, but make sure to 'Leave messages on server'. That means you have a copy of everything in server Inbox. You can then choose to use the Pop account as your everyday account - note anything you send via that account will keep a copy also on your computer.

Then create a new mail account set up to use IMAP protocol. Via the imap account, you get to see everything on server, in all folders, you do not need to choose to download full copies, because the POP account already has them but it does not matter. You can use the Imap account for everyday use, but please note anything you send will get stored on server thus using up some of your quota and it will not be available to the POP account as it can only access Inbox. The point is this, you can use the IMAP account to delete stuff off the server, but beware - has the POP account already downloaded a copy?

You might feel safer just using a Pop account, downloading everything and then use the POP account for everyday use. Then logging on to the webmail account periodically to clear down older emails that you have downloaded.

Advise you get a Thunderbird download from this link - it's the official website and it will mean profiles get created in the default location: https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/all/

AS a heads up, one profile can contain many mail accounts, address books, calendars etc.