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Thunderbird POP to IMAP transition

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  • Last reply by david

larryk3
larryk3
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I had a POP account on my desktop PC for many years. Recently I purchased my first laptop and decided to go IMAP on it, while retaining my old downloaded emails as an archive on my old desktop PC. I turned off automatically downloading emails in this desktop PC's POP instance of Thunderbird.

(The desktop PC is Windows 10, the laptop is Windows 11.)

I didn't want to transfer these old emails from my desktop PC to an IMAP server, because they weren't organized -- everything was in the Inbox. On the new laptop (and/or on the IMAP server), I am diligent in putting emails into appropriate folders.

My question is: how can I convert the desktop PC to be IMAP while yet retainomg my old email archive, so that I can access those old emails as needed on both desktop PC and laptop PC -- which will both be IMAP?

I had a POP account on my desktop PC for many years. Recently I purchased my first laptop and decided to go IMAP on it, while retaining my old downloaded emails as an archive on my old desktop PC. I turned off automatically downloading emails in this desktop PC's POP instance of Thunderbird. (The desktop PC is Windows 10, the laptop is Windows 11.) I didn't want to transfer these old emails from my desktop PC to an IMAP server, because they weren't organized -- everything was in the Inbox. On the new laptop (and/or on the IMAP server), I am diligent in putting emails into appropriate folders. My question is: how can I convert the desktop PC to be IMAP while yet retainomg my old email archive, so that I can access those old emails as needed on both desktop PC and laptop PC -- which will both be IMAP?

All Replies (1)

david
david
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Since the old messages are to be an archive, I propose doing it the simplest way: put the old messages on each PC. Yes, there are fancy ways to make accessible from one platform, but it's messy and problem-prone. Here would be my dirt-simple approach: - if the importexporttools addon is not installed, install on both PCs. - on the desktop PC, highlight each folder to be saved as archive (such as the POP inbox) - then right-click and use the importexport menu to export as mbox - repeat for all folders to be shared from the POP account - on both PCs, in Local Folders, create a new folder for each of the folders you exported. - now, for each saved folder, highlight one of the new local folders, right-click and select the importexport menu to import mbox and select one of the desired saved folders - repeat for all folders - you're done.

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