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My BT email is all visible via Thunderbird on my laptop, but my (browser) BT inbox and Samsung (phone) mail inbox for BT are empty. Yet Gmail and AOL work fine.

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  • Last reply by PaulReeve

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I have a MacBook Pro (late 2013) with Thunderbird 52.8.0(64-bit) installed. My OS is El Capitan 10.11.5 (I can't update further or my standalone Adobe CS6 won't work and I'll have to start paying Adobe monthly rent for my products). My Thunderbird is set up so I retain all my email on the laptop, nothing vanishes. I have a BT email address, 3 AOL email addresses and a Gmail address. All run through Thunderbird. When I open Thunderbird on my laptop all my email inboxes, outboxes, drafts, spam, etc. work exactly as I'd expect them to. When I login to my BT account via a browser (safari) on the laptop I can't see ANY email in the inbox, I can see some sent email (sent from my phone only), some spam and trashed files. Nothing in the inbox. BT tell me there's nothing wrong with the email, it must be to do with Thunderbird. I have a Galaxy S9 and have set up the proprietary email app. I can clearly see, and have all functionality with the AOL and Gmail emails. The BT email acts in exactly the same way as just described, I can't see anything in the inbox. I need to have access to my email when out and about and this is driving me barmy. I'd be very grateful if anyone can shed light on what's happening - I'm guessing it'll be obvious but I can't work it out!

I have a MacBook Pro (late 2013) with Thunderbird 52.8.0(64-bit) installed. My OS is El Capitan 10.11.5 (I can't update further or my standalone Adobe CS6 won't work and I'll have to start paying Adobe monthly rent for my products). My Thunderbird is set up so I retain all my email on the laptop, nothing vanishes. I have a BT email address, 3 AOL email addresses and a Gmail address. All run through Thunderbird. When I open Thunderbird on my laptop all my email inboxes, outboxes, drafts, spam, etc. work exactly as I'd expect them to. When I login to my BT account via a browser (safari) on the laptop I can't see ANY email in the inbox, I can see some sent email (sent from my phone only), some spam and trashed files. Nothing in the inbox. BT tell me there's nothing wrong with the email, it must be to do with Thunderbird. I have a Galaxy S9 and have set up the proprietary email app. I can clearly see, and have all functionality with the AOL and Gmail emails. The BT email acts in exactly the same way as just described, I can't see anything in the inbox. I need to have access to my email when out and about and this is driving me barmy. I'd be very grateful if anyone can shed light on what's happening - I'm guessing it'll be obvious but I can't work it out!

Chosen solution

To bad your email provider does not know the difference between the way POP and IMAP email protocols work. Just like most help desks they just know to pick up the phone when it rings and say Not Our Fauly. The short version is POP downloads messages to the computer and removes them from the server. IMAP is server based and you view messages remotely from your devices. If you check the server settings for the account in question it is likely configured as POP and working as expected.

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Chosen Solution

To bad your email provider does not know the difference between the way POP and IMAP email protocols work. Just like most help desks they just know to pick up the phone when it rings and say Not Our Fauly. The short version is POP downloads messages to the computer and removes them from the server. IMAP is server based and you view messages remotely from your devices. If you check the server settings for the account in question it is likely configured as POP and working as expected.

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Thanks for getting back to me so quickly! I'm being slightly cautious here - it seems as though BT offer POP3 or IMAP. I'll try to switch over and get back, hopefully with a thumbs up.

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Do Not Change the existing account in Thunderbird. Add the account again with a different name as IMAP. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switch-pop-imap-account

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Brilliant - and saved by the bell as I was just about to go around this the wrong way - many thanks!