Using TB to download the same email from Gmail account on 2 different computers
Hello,
I have been struggling with this issue for some time and finally thought maybe someone in the support forums could help. Here is my concern:
I have two laptops, each running Thunderbird. They both can access my local ISP and download email – whatever email is on that server will download to both laptops, no matter which one polls for it first. And mail will remain on that server until I delete it from there since TB is set to leave messages on server.
I thought I could set up my Gmail account that way – so that each laptop using TB could download all recent email – and both could get all of the email, no matter which one accessed it first.
Well – it doesn’t seem that it works that way. If I download the email to laptop A – then when I try from laptop B – it doesn’t download any that was already downloaded to laptop A, and visa versa, since apparently it is only downloading each email once – to whichever laptop polls for it first – not both like my local email server.
I have Gmail set up as POP, with the option to leave messages on server checked, and each laptop works fine independently – but all of the email can never be downloaded to both laptops – one is always missing some.
After I download any messages, the messages that are downloaded are not marked as read on the Gmail server - they remain marked as unread, but they will only download to the first laptop that polls for new messages.
I was hoping that someone might be able to tell me a trick to make this work. I do not want to change to IMAP since it seems that would make the "confusion" worse - if one laptop deletes a message, it would be deleted from the server as well. I want to continue to use POP3, but I want each laptop to operate independently and be able to get all of the new email that is on the server - no matter which one polls first.
I did read the info about Recent mode - but I'm not sure that will work as it seems it will only "show" 30 days of emails - what about the rest? I have many going back several years that I want to keep, and don't want anything to delete them either from TB or Gmail.
Seems there must be a way to do this, and it seems like it is a TB issue in the settings.
I appreciate any help that anyone can offer. Thanks!
Okulungisiwe ngu LHiggins2023
All Replies (7)
"If you're using the same Gmail POP account with multiple email clients you need to enable recent mode in order to let each email client access all of the messages in that account. You can do that by replacing username@gmail.com with recent:username@gmail.com as the username in Tools -> Account Settings -> Server Settings."
Thanks, but I'm not sure just how to do this. Which email needs to be amended to show recent - the account name or the email address that show on the Server settings page? Or is it the address on the account setting page?
I did try it earlier, but not sure I did it right so I changed it back before "anything" damaging happened.
Will setting it this way eliminate all but the last 30 days or email from within the gmail account - or is it just that TB will only access the last 30 days of mail and not do anything to the mail within gmail? I have a lot stored up there and don't want to lose any of those.
Thanks for the help!
Okulungisiwe ngu LHiggins2023
Account Settings, Server Settings for the gmail account, append recent: to the email address in the User Name box: e.g. recent:username@gmail.com.
Where do you see a 30-day limit? In gmail webmail settings, there are options for downloading all POP mail or just ones since POP was enabled, and leaving mail on the server.
Thanks!
As to the 30 day thing:
[Gmail messages on other email clients using POP] "It's easiest to use Gmail on multiple email clients using IMAP. If you need to use POP instead of IMAP, set up 'Recent mode.' Recent mode shows your last 30 days of emails from Gmail."
It says last 30 days there - I wanted to be sure that whatever is downloaded into TB will stay there and won't be deleted from the Gmail server.
I also wanted to be sure that once I download email, it will always remain in TB - and not be deleted after 30 days, and that emails aren't downloaded a second or third or more times.
Thanks!
OK - an update. I have several mailboxes set up on Thunderbird. One is for my local ISP, and several others are gmail mailboxes.
I set the gmail account I wanted to test to "recent" on both laptops. Email downloaded into both accounts with no issues.
However - for some reason, it also was sent to my ISP address, so it all downloaded there as well. Why would that be? That account isn't set to "recent' and the emails in question were only sent to the gmail address - not the ISP address.
And how would I undo that - turn off the "recent" setting? Or just delete that mailbox entirely? That really isn't going to be an acceptable solution if it double downloads everything.
I don't think those accounts are linked in any way - but it looks like they may be??
And - only the last 30 days worth of emails in the gmail mailbox were downloaded - but none were deleted from the server.
Okulungisiwe ngu LHiggins2023
Check the webmail settings for the ISP account to see if it collects gmail, and check gmail webmail settings to see if it's set to forward mail to the ISP account.
Disable recent mode by deleting recent: fro the User Name. Managing accounts on multiple devices is a lot easier with IMAP setups.
Thanks so much. I think I figured out why all of those test emails were downloaded into the ISP server. It was a forwarding issue.
I went ahead and just deleted that gmail account from Thunderbird - it was just a test, so I really didn't need to have it there. I'll keep an eye on the rest and hopefully it will all work OK - didn't make any other changes, so it should.
I agree - there must be an easier way to do this, but IMAP isn't something that I want to get involved in at this point.
Thanks again for all of the help!
LH