re: I closed an email account but Tbird continued to ask me for the password even though I had unchecked the 'check for emails' option.

This sounds like you were using an imap mail account. Imap mail accounts would need to stop checking at startup, stop checking every x minutes and also stop allowing immediate server notification.

re :However, now the mail is still in the folders but I cannot read any of it. Imap mail account folders synchronise with server to show a remote view of emails stored on the server. Usually, only headers are downloaded and when you select an email in the list, the rest of the email is downloaded to a temporary folder - (not in Thunderbird) and this facilitates reading of email. These emails are stored on server not in Thunderbird.

If you needed to read them in offline mode or whilst not connected to server, you would have needed to synchronise folders for offline use to get a full copy of emails downloaded to your computer. These would then be stored in Thunderbird profile imap folders. If you disconnect from server or go 'offline' and you cannot read emails, this is because they are not stored on your computer. You are only seeing an index which contains the headers, not the emails.

If you were to remove a mail account in thunderbird or close the account with whomever provided the email address, but still want access to emails, first you would have needed to synchronise all imap folders for offline use to get a full copy of emails downloaded to your computer. Then in 'Offline' mode (to stop further synchronising whilst dealing with emails) , create new folders in 'Local Folders' mail account and get 'Copies' of emails from the imap folders into the Local Folders mail account.

re :I tried setting up the old account with the same username, password and settings but that does not work because when the software checks the servers, it does not find them. Were you able to create another imap mail account for same email address or did it say it could not verify configuration settings, so unable to actually create the account?

Were you able to create the imap mail account, but after subscribing to see folders they appeared empty? If you logon to the webmail account for that email address using a browser and the emails are not there, then an imap mail account cannot see what does not exist.

When you say 'closed the account' did you mean 'remove the account from Thunderbird', or do you really mean you closed the account with whomever provided it?

Not IMAP account. Pop3. Therefore no mail on server, only downloaded.

I just need to know how to open the mail in the folders on my hard disk.

re :I tried setting up the old account with the same username, password and settings

Did you create this new pop mail account? If yes, point that new pop mail account to look at the old pop mail account folders.

• Right click on new pop mail account in Folder pane and select 'Settings'
• Select 'Server Settings'

bottom right locate 'Local directory:' When you create a second pop mail account it will put a number after the mail account name. You may see this in the 'Local directory' - click in that text box area and use the right arrow key to get to the far right example: C:\Users\User Account\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\Mail\mail.domain-1.com

click on 'Browse...' button select the original pop mail account name. eg: C:\Users\User Account\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\Mail\mail.domain.com (without the number) click on OK

As I no longer have any service from the original mail server (ureach.com), I was not able to create or re-create the original pop3 account because T-bird checks the pop3 server and finds it non-existent. So the new email account does not get set up.

All my oher emails are IMAP with gmail and outlook.com. I don't think I can redirect a pop3 mail account to a Gmail IMAP account without losing all the mail in gmail.

So it seems I need to be able to read my old ureach.com mail offline without actually settting up an account.

Next suggestion please?

Use the ImportExportTools add-on to import your old POP account folders into Local Folders.

Next time, move your old messages into Local Folders before you delete/cancel/close/remove the unwanted account.