Reaching Max Quota for IMap Email

[ronkimak]

I received a message that I am reaching the maximum quota, I believe it is 5 Gig allowable, for my IMAP email account. Is it Thunderbird that imposes this quota or is it my ISP that limits the size of my account. I would like to switch to a POP protocol . When I try to setup a POP account I get a message that my setup cannot be authenticated. Is there a difference between a POP and a POP3 account ?

[DanRaisch]

The quota is set by your ISP as Thunderbird does not set a 5GB limit for IMAP accounts.
POP is the common reference for a email account that uses the POP3 email protocol, so "No" there is no difference.
Who is your email provider.
What is your purpose in switching to a POP type account? Perhaps it's not necessary to make the switch to accomplish your purpose.

[mgagnonlv]

As DanRaisch said, the quota is set by your ISP.

Overall, I would say that IMAP has definite avantages over POP. For one, you have a current backup via your ISP. Second, with IMAP, you see both your incoming messages and your replies both on your main computer and on your phone or secondary computers, as well as on the web interface.

My first recommendation would be a simple one: make sure your trash is empty. If you never empty it (manually or automatically), you might have more mail in the trash than in your active folders. Believe me, I have see this more than once!

To empty the trash, right-click on it (it's called Trash, Deleted Item, Bin, Poubelle...) and select "Empty trash now". If you are forgetful and want to empty it regularly, I would suggest you right-click and select Properties. Then under "Conservation rules", tell it to delete messages that are more than, say, 20 days old.

Even if trash collection is not an issue, I would still recommend you to stay with IMAP and partially empty your account. How to do so? Via local folders!

Here is how to do so.

• In Thunderbird, under "Local Folders" (left panel, way down the list of folders), create a new hierarchy of folders that will replicate what you have on the server. No need to do all folders, just the major ones. Assuming the typical profile with lots of main in Inbox and Sent Items, simply create the following two folders:
  – Archive 2001-2015: Inbox
  – Archive 2001-2015: Sent Items
  Note. You can use any name you want, or create as many or as few folders you want, group by years or not. I would suggest you keep all folders under 4 GB, so you may want to subdivide accordingly.
  Tip. To see the size of your folders, right-click on your account's Inbox folder and select Properties.
  .
• Move mail from your account's inbox to Local Folders –> Archive 2001-2015: Inbox.
  To avoid stalling, move messages in smaller chunks of, say 500 messages or so if there aren't many attachments, or 100 messages or so if there are large attachments.
  To move messages, select a bunch of them, then right-click and select "Move to... –> Local Folders - Archive 2001-2015: Inbox".
  When a chunk is moved, do the next one... until you are finished. Then do the same for your Sent Items folders and any other large folder that you find it worth archiving partially.
  Expect the move to take some time, especially if you have a slow connection. Even if you already had a copy of messages stored locally, Thunderbird needs to interact with the ISP to tell it messages have been moved away.
  Note. Don't archive the most recent emails as they won't be available on other platforms. I suggested offloading up to 2015 as you would still have 1.5 years available in your inbox.
  Tip. Stay connected a long time, as there always seem to be some files that take longer to transfer. When I move stuff from one account to another, I like to keep Thunderbird open all night so it has time to finish its work in the background.
  .
• The day after, check everything. Make sure your messages are OK in the archived folders.
  .
• Go back to your account and delete messages
  When you moved messages from your account to your local folder, Thunderbird actually created a new copy in your local folder and then deleted the ones that were in your account's inbox. So until you purge your trash, you haven't gained any space.

[DanRaisch]

To avoid stalling, move messages in smaller chunks of, say 500 messages or so if there aren't many attachments, or 100 messages or so if there are large attachments.

Even safer, don't Move the messages at all but Copy them from the original location to the target location. That way if the process fails you can try again without losing data.