How do I go about switching from AOL Gold email browser to Thunderbird and transfer my exisiting Incoming and Outgoing emails to Thunderbird?
I took out a subscription to AOL Premium Gold as an email browser, because AOL currently carries my Verizon email address. I thought it would facilitate receiving and sending emails, but the opposite has occurred. AOL's software deletes my emails before I finish drafting them and they disappear into the ethernet. Sometimes it tells me that emails have been "Sent," and I find out later from the recipient that they weren't Sent. Sometimes it tells me the reverse, i.e. that my emails weren't "Sent," and I find out later from the recipient that they were "Sent." AOL is driving me crazy and wasting my time. I hope Thunderbird can become my email sal ation and that someone can tell how to move my current incoming emails and outgoing emails safely from AOL to Thunderbird. Please reply as soon as possible, since I want to sever ties with AOL as quickly as I can. Please also assure me that Thunderbird can pick up my email address, since many people have it as the principal way to to contact me that I'm very reluctant to change it. As I said, I have not severed ties with AOL yet, because I understand that the email server or email address must still be active in order to have it picked up by another email carrier. Many thanks for what I hope will be your help.
All Replies (3)
install Thunderbird On install it will ask for your email address and password and add your account.
BUT and this is a big but. AOL and Yahoo were both bought by Verizon and Verizon promptly offloaded all of it's mail to AOL. But the reality is AOL is now Yahoo and as a result we have something of a dogs breakfast happening with lots of folks that do not have a clue making far reaching decisions about things they have no understanding of. It make navigating the waters somewhat difficult to say the least.
My personal advice would be bite the bullet and just move on from thos slow moving train wreck and get a mail provider that actually knows something about mail. I recommend GMX, they just do mail and they do it well.
However we must try and sort out the mess Verizon have created while writing down the vlue of their investment by billions.
You will find that AOL and Yahoo both almost insist or oauth as the authentication method. to use anything else causes issues with application passwords and less secure apps settings. However because of the nature of oAuth it is available for @aol servers and @yahoo servers, but not @verizon ones. Great hey.
However there is information here for pop accounts https://help.aol.com/articles/verizon-move-to-aol-mail-updating-your-third-party-email-program-or-mobile-device-with-your-new-account-information-pop3
and here for setting up IMAP. https://help.aol.com/articles/verizon-move-to-aol-mail-setting-up-your-new-aol-account-in-a-third-party-email-program-or-mobile-device-imap
If you are not up to speed on which is what in IMAP and POP. I suggest you have a look here for the basics https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/difference-between-imap-and-pop3
Finally. If you have an anti virus program that scanns outgoing mail, disable that feature the first chance you get. It is a very common cause of mail sending issues hidden away between you and you clicking send and the remote SMTP server that is sending your mail. If it makes a mess of it, you don't usually get to know more than odd things are happening. It is also almost completely useless.
You computer is scanned by the anti virus and it can find nothing. You click send and it starts that whole circus over again. Except it said it could find nothing before you clicked send and a virus does not just spontaneously appear. So what exactly is it scanning for? My feeling is it is just marketing and a chance to put a scanned by tag line on your mail as free advertising.
The explanation above by one member of Community Forum is far more complicated than I can follow. (I am a neophyte in technical matters.) I need real-time guidance to change my email browser from AOL Desktop Gold to Thunderbird AND preserve existing incoming/outgoing emails on my laptop. AOL Desktop Gold is driving me crazy. The software is so poor that it deletes emails while I'm in the process of drafting them. Sometimes I can find them but more often I cannot. Having to redraft long outgoing emails is a terrible waste of time. The software also brings up ads while I'm in the process of drafting, which I have to get rid of before I can finish an outgoing email. This flaw can also bring about unwanted deletions. Please help me bury AOL Desktop Gold before it does more damage.
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The explanation above by one member of Community Forum is far more complicated than I can follow. (I am a neophyte in technical matters.) I need real-time guidance to change my email browser from AOL Desktop Gold to Thunderbird AND preserve existing incoming/outgoing emails on my laptop. AOL Desktop Gold is driving me crazy. The software is so poor that it deletes emails while I'm in the process of drafting them. Sometimes I can find them but more often I cannot. Having to redraft long outgoing emails is a terrible waste of time. The software also brings up ads while I'm in the process of drafting, which I have to get rid of before I can finish an outgoing email. This flaw can also bring about unwanted deletions. Please help me bury AOL Desktop Gold before it does more damage.
The I suggest you install the software and follow the prompts. That it has taken you 3 months to reply just leaves me with no desire to even try. Just install it and try it than ask you questions. No one can teach you how to use software you are not familiar with or about system you are not familiar with unless you put in some effort to use them and learn.