Thunderbird question - imap vs pop

trevo said:

I couldn't be any clearer, read what I posted, slowly if necessary and I'm sure you will understand eventually.

I think you somehow quoted the wrong member with another's post.

oh... side note..... patronizing doesn't go far here.

zebal said:

I didn't use gmail for a very long time and forgot how it works.

I have a Gmail account attached to Outlook 365 desktop app, and it's setup in IMAP, and I can save emails externally.

Again, I'm in agreement with you.

Peace

This is an example of a T-Bird Gmail IMAP account. It's my Tenforums email account. The others are various other accounts and the two at the bottom are local folders I created so I could drag n' drop certain emails I wanted to segregate and keep for a bit.

Shown is the T-Bird retention policy for my TF Gmail account. I chose to not auto delete anything, but I could as you can see from the options. Note that deletions are to the local and server side. In the case of Gmail, that throws them in the server TRASH folder for the account and can be retrieved and moved back to Inbox or elsewhere.

Just an example, if it helps.

patriceltic said:

Thanks so much. I will give it a try. You are very helpful.

You're welcome. Post back if any more questions. Best of luck.

patriceltic said:

Thunderbird allows export to an external drive. (Outlook does not?) So if I export my emails to that drive and then delete them off of my pc, they will also be deleted off the external drive? If I disconnect the drive, then they can't be deleted, right?

MS Outlook, thunderbird and almost any other client (email software on you PC, not server such as google) allows you to export email, however the exported file format is client specific, that means something you export with MS Outlook might not be importable back by thunderbird or some other email client.

You can deal with exported email how ever you like, if you save export file to USB drive nothing can delete it except yourself, disk failure or some malware etc., it's your responsibility to keep it in safe place.

email client won't delete your export, because email within client has no link with exported file, exported email file is your backup and nothing else.
However if you delete email within client then that email is gone from client as well as from server, unless server grants you keeping a copy. (but your exported backup will still be where ever you place it)

Importing exported email into client is tricky in that you might not be able push it back onto server, only into email client that exported it, for you to view it and nothing else.

I recommend you to use IMAP, what ever you do within client will be reflected on the server as well, deleting, new mail, incoming mail etc.. everything is in sync with server (email service provider).

Having a backup (exported file) is good only if you delete some email within client or do some mistake.
I hope this helps.

I'm not sure what's meant by "import", email from msn or from exported file, most likely email from msn on server, you did configure IMAP? if yes email from msn domain should be downloaded to your PC leaving copy on server.

It's your personal choice whether you want all mail from msn on your computer or not, new mail should be delivered anyway to thunderbird.