Before starting to use Thunderbird as e-mail client for my Hotmail account, could you plse inform me of the following (reading through several answers on various forums, I'm still not sure what to expect) : 1. Apart from the "standard" Hotmail folders (Inbox, Sent, Contacts,...) will Thunderbird also "recognize" the specific folders that I created in Hotmail to keep / store mails by subject? 2. When using Thunderbird for the first time, will ALL emails (read and unread) per folder be downloaded from Hotmail to Thunderbird, as part of the initial migration? Or does the system start from scratch and are only the newly created mails downloaded to the email client Thunderbird? Or can this choosen by the user through specific parameters? 3. My understanding is - since one still can use Hotmail directy through the browser on that MS servers - that emails are kept on the servers, only a copy is downloaded to the email clinet Thunderbird, which also applies to the initial download at start up. Correct? But is that so under all circumstances? I saw somewhere a parameter that could be set " number of days" after which the mail is deleted from the server!? And is there any difference between POP and IMAP in that respect? In other words, is the system fool proof, whatever parameters I rightly or wronly I set, I can be sure that the history of my emails on the Hotmail servers will be kept? Thanks for your earliest reply,