Getting mail on Thunderbird

[Wonderful1]

I just switched from an pop3 to Imap. Because they told me to uncheck the two boxes in regard to email notifications, when I open the app, messages do not retrieve. I have to get messages manually each time I open the app.
Is there still a way to retrieve messages auto when I open the program, or must I do it manually? Is there any thing peculiar to imap that won't allow me to do this?

[DanRaisch]

Because they told me to uncheck the two boxes in regard to email notifications,

Whoever "they" are, they gave you bad advise. There is no reason to disable the optiosn to "Check for new messages at startup" and "Check for new messages ever NN minutes" when accessing your email from an IMAP account.

[tanstaafl]

IMAP adds a "allow immediate server notifications when new messages arrive" checkbox in the server settings (which adds yet another way to discover new mail) but there is no reason to uncheck the two other checkboxes. Having all three methods enabled notifies you quicker as they are triggered by different events and/or use different timers.