Do you have a link to a site that told you this? I would dispute that. POP downloads everything unless explicitly told not to, and IMAP maintains a temporary local cache. If you want a permanent local copy, move the messages to an offline store such as the Local Folders special account.

AFAIK, the only place in Thunderbird where downloading message bodies is not the default is when it's used as a reader for newsgroups.

Zenos said

Do you have a link to a site that told you this? I would dispute that. POP downloads everything unless explicitly told not to, and IMAP maintains a temporary local cache. If you want a permanent local copy, move the messages to an offline store such as the Local Folders special account. AFAIK, the only place in Thunderbird where downloading message bodies is not the default is when it's used as a reader for newsgroups.

I'm not sure which part you are asking for a link for. And I'm also not sure whether you have answered my question. Are you saying that using Thunderbird will allow me to access the full text of all emails received, even if unopened, and to attachments when offline? If so, this is what I am looking for.

You say you've read that Thunderbird doesn't download messages. In my experience it does so I was curious to see what you'd read and whether it was inaccurate or ambiguous.

I really don't know how to say it any clearer. Thunderbird downloads messages and attachments unless you go out of your way to stop it doing so, with the particular exception of newsgroups.

Zenos said

You say you've read that Thunderbird doesn't download messages. In my experience it does so I was curious to see what you'd read and whether it was inaccurate or ambiguous. I really don't know how to say it any clearer. Thunderbird downloads messages and attachments unless you go out of your way to stop it doing so, with the particular exception of newsgroups.

Zenos, I'm not trying to bag Thunderbird, quite the opposite. All I have read about Thunderbird comes from simply typing the name into Google and to be honest, I'm not sure exactly where I read the various comment. Perhaps I should start at the beginning and would value your input as a high-level contributor.

Last week I got messages to say one of my google accounts was compromised and on trying to sort it out, it seems that the account has been hijacked due to woefully inadequate Google security and an almost unbelievable lack of effective customer support failing to enable a resolution of the problem, but that's all another issue. As a result of this I have been trying to beef up my online security. I have other Google accounts and instituted two-step authentication and disabled access to less secure apps which then meant that my existing email client, Eudora, could no longer access my email accounts. As a result of this, I wanted to find a new up-to-date email client which I could use which would not be blocked by these security settings. I have no idea whether Thunderbird would be ok with two-step authentication and disabled access to less secure apps, but as it's current, I assumed it would be. Please let me know if it isn't. I had consulted an IT professional in my attempt to sort out the Google issue and he suggested I install Thunderbird and he did confirm that he was able to access his emails and attachments off line. So why did I suggest otherwise? Probably a mixture of ignorance and misreading reviews. I read somewhere that Thunderbird wasn't the best client for off line access and then that Thunderbird uses IMAP rather than POP (please don't assume I know anything much about either of these protocols other than what they stand for!) and from my limited research it seemed that IMAP leaves the data on the server so I assumed this meant that emails and attachments would not be downloaded. It seems that that assumption is incorrect. Eudora downloads all new emails and attachments at the time of starting the program and these emails and attachments are there to be read at any time, even those which were not read before going off line. If Thunderbird functions in this same way, then this is the new program for me. For example, I have heard that Outlook only downloads an attachment when the email is opened and the attachment is actively opened. Again, this may not be correct.

Appreciate your responses. Peter.

Lets make this simple. Eudora will have been using the pop mail protocol. If you create an account in Thunderbird using the same pop it will download all messages and their bodies as a default action. You will have to take action to stop it doing that.

Attachments, unlike the hybrid way Eudora did things are not a separate thing. they remain in Thunderbird as a mime encoded part of the message body. Again you have to go out of your way to make them be removed from that situation.

IMAP, which is also offered by Gmail is synchronized with the server. It is in many regards an animal to come to terms with as it is a powerful way to manage mail across multiple devices. defaults for IMAP in Thunderbird are to download local copies, but due to the synchronized nature of the mail. Copies can not be considered permanent in the way pop mail can be. Notwithstanding this, once downloaded locally they are available while offline. I suggest you have a read of the following short summary of what IMAP and POP are. It will save you a lot of trouble in the long term if you have a basic understanding of what is happening. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/glossary-terms-including-types-accounts#w_mail-accounts

Note: that if you install an older version of Thunderbird (5) it can import Eudora mail. If the mail is not too badly messed up by the bugs Eudora has always had in it's mail storage. The only criteria is the windows registry needs to have the Eudora store location already in it. This is normally set simply by running Eudora.

Matt said

Lets make this simple. Eudora will have been using the pop mail protocol. If you create an account in Thunderbird using the same pop it will download all messages and their bodies as a default action. You will have to take action to stop it doing that. Attachments, unlike the hybrid way Eudora did things are not a separate thing. they remain in Thunderbird as a mime encoded part of the message body. Again you have to go out of your way to make them be removed from that situation. IMAP, which is also offered by Gmail is synchronized with the server. It is in many regards an animal to come to terms with as it is a powerful way to manage mail across multiple devices. defaults for IMAP in Thunderbird are to download local copies, but due to the synchronized nature of the mail. Copies can not be considered permanent in the way pop mail can be. Notwithstanding this, once downloaded locally they are available while offline. I suggest you have a read of the following short summary of what IMAP and POP are. It will save you a lot of trouble in the long term if you have a basic understanding of what is happening. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/glossary-terms-including-types-accounts#w_mail-accounts Note: that if you install an older version of Thunderbird (5) it can import Eudora mail. If the mail is not too badly messed up by the bugs Eudora has always had in it's mail storage. The only criteria is the windows registry needs to have the Eudora store location already in it. This is normally set simply by running Eudora.

Thanks very much, Matt, for your detailed reply. I have read some basic stuff about POP and IMAP and, of course, like anything technical, a little bit of knowledge isn't always a good thing. I'm a doctor so am well aware of where this can lead!

I will indeed read the link you sent to me but hope you don't mind if I ask a few questions.

Having installed and added an email account to Thunderbird, I can see that at set up I can choose between POP and IMAP so if I want my emails and attachments to be available off line, I should choose POP. That's great. I was sort of aware that Thunderbird handles attachments differently from Eudora but am not clear on what the practical implications of this are - eg can I still access an attached file and copy it to another destination, say a folder on my hard drive? I basically only access email on my laptop, currently with Eudora. I do have a desktop which also has Eudora installed which I maybe use once or twice a year. I rarely use my mobile devices for email but do occasionally access mail via the Gmail app. It seems from your answer that I can access my emails off line with either POP or IMAP configurations so are there any reasons for not choosing a POP configuration in my circumstances?

Given your description, I would say that POP on the laptop would work well for you, but use IMAP on the phone etc. Note that you may not be given the choice with the phone; email clients on portable devices tend to default to IMAP anyway.

I'd advise against POP on your "secondary" devices because if you download a message to one of these and decide you want to also keep it on the laptop you'll have to find some way of moving it to the laptop. With IMAP it would automatically remain available to the laptop too. And the message will eventually disappear from the phone, after being dealt with by the laptop, so you won't have the additional work of removing it from the phone. In my experience, phones stop working because they become filled up, and you don't want to aggravate this simply by unnecessarily storing email on it.

Thanks Zenos, that makes sense.

Peter

A response I just received from Zenos was also rather rude in that it assumed a great deal of my "knowledge" of all the intricacies of POP vs. IMAP. I suggest he not be so snarky when what I request differs from his/her personal preferences in managing my emails. I was quite clear in how i manage my emails related to my work, yet he felt inclined to mention backups in a manner that indicated his low view of me and my work preferences. So: can i alter my current email to POP or do I have to delete my IMAP account (which I have no clue how to do) and re-create a POP based email account? Will all the emails on my computer disappear when I do what ever I need to do? Will all the emails still on the server disappear?

Ludite said

This is off topic and designed to incite a response to which you are not entitled. Be warned. Keep your discussion to your own thread where you have received the answer.