IMAP questions

[spionfox]

Up until now I have had several email accounts all using the pop3 protocol on Thunderbird.

For various reasons I want to switch to IMAP but have a coup,e of questions for those that might know.

1 - Currently all of my pop3 mail from all accounts goes into the one inbox. Can this be replicated with IMAP or do you have to have a separate folder hierarchy for each IMAP account?

2 - My existing folder structure (based on pop3 accounts) keeps downloaded (offline) copies of all my previously kept emails. If I simply drag messages from an IMAP folder to these user created (offline) folders then am I right in saying the message is removed from the IMAP folders but stays as a locally downloaded copy on my PC together with all the previous messages?

3 - Any disadvantages to swapping to IMAP?

4 - Any better clients to handle IMAP than Thunderbird?

Thanks very muchly guys and gals :icon_bigg

 

[Macky]

Up until now I have had several email accounts all using the pop3 protocol on Thunderbird.

For various reasons I want to switch to IMAP but have a coup,e of questions for those that might know.

You'll only be able to do that if your mail provider supports IMAP, you probably already know that, but worth mentioning.

1 - Currently all of my pop3 mail from all accounts goes into the one inbox. Can this be replicated with IMAP or do you have to have a separate folder hierarchy for each IMAP account?

Either, or. Depends on the client, each account will have its own inbox, but you can configure it to go wherever you want.

2 - My existing folder structure (based on pop3 accounts) keeps downloaded (offline) copies of all my previously kept emails. If I simply drag messages from an IMAP folder to these user created (offline) folders then am I right in saying the message is removed from the IMAP folders but stays as a locally downloaded copy on my PC together with all the previous messages?

Again, depends how you configure it. The main difference is that the mail exists on the mail server, for you to do what you want to do with it. Save it, delete it, archive it, store it locally, whatever.

3 - Any disadvantages to swapping to IMAP?

No, it's far superior to POP3.

4 - Any better clients to handle IMAP than Thunderbird?

Dunno.

 

[spionfox]

Either, or. Depends on the client, each account will have its own inbox, but you can configure it to go wherever you want.

Yeah, but then I still have the unused folders visible (at least in TB) and it looks a bit tatty and takes up screen estate!

No, it's far superior to POP3.

The only downside I can think of is if your internet connection goes down you lose access to your old email, unless you've archived it all of course in which case wouldn't pop3 be better?

Horses for course I suppose. Thanks Macky.

 

[spionfox]

Just one more question.........

I have my Blackberry set up for my email accounts as pop3 but to leave messages on the server. Can I leave these settings as they are if I convert my PC based accounts to IMAP?

I assume if I leave it as pop3 but to leave messages it wont affect anything but I'm not totally sure!