How can I change my pop e-mail accound to IMAP?

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Dirki
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How can I change my pop e-mail accound to IMAP?

Post by Dirki »

Since today freenet requires IMAP in the account settings. How can I change my pop e-mail accound to IMAP?
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WaltS48
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Re: How can I change my pop e-mail accound to IMAP?

Post by WaltS48 »

Dirki wrote:Since today freenet requires IMAP in the account settings. How can I change my pop e-mail accound to IMAP?
They didn't provide instructions?
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Dirki
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Re: How can I change my pop e-mail accound to IMAP?

Post by Dirki »

I cannot find understandable ones. I even couldn't find an understandable instruction how to just switch from pop to IMAP in Thunderbrid.
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DanRaisch
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Re: How can I change my pop e-mail accound to IMAP?

Post by DanRaisch »

It's not wise to just change settings to switch from POP to IMAP. See this article for instructions for the process -- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/sw ... ap-account
Dirki
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Re: How can I change my pop e-mail accound to IMAP?

Post by Dirki »

Many thanks for the link.

So you have to add new accounts instead going on using the old ones.

I now have created a new account for each old one. The e-mails are still downloaded to the old (inbox) folders (instead of to the ones of the new accounts). But it does not bother me. Should I leave it like that or leave the measseage of the old accounts where they are or remove those accounts?
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DanRaisch
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Re: How can I change my pop e-mail accound to IMAP?

Post by DanRaisch »

That's up to you and how you were using the POP account. If you have messages in the folders of the POP accounts that are not present in the new IMAP accounts you can copy those messages into the folders of the new accounts. If there are no such messages (that is if the new IMAP accounts contain all of the messages in the POP accounts, you can just remove you old POP accounts.
Dirki
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Re: How can I change my pop e-mail accound to IMAP?

Post by Dirki »

There are no e-mails downloaded to the new accounts. Only the old accounts (still) have all of the e-mails. I do not undersand why the old accounts work again as I didn't change anything there.
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Re: How can I change my pop e-mail accound to IMAP?

Post by DanRaisch »

* Without posting your full email address, what settings do you have under menu path Tools->Account Settings Server Settings:
Server name:
Port # :
User name : (Is it your full name or just the bit before the @ symbol)
Connection Security:
Authentication Method:
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Eckard
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Re: How can I change my pop e-mail accound to IMAP?

Post by Eckard »

Dirki wrote:There are no e-mails downloaded to the new accounts. Only the old accounts (still) have all of the e-mails. I do not undersand why the old accounts work again as I didn't change anything there.
Since your POP accounts are still active and not yet blocked by Freenet they continue to download new messages.
If in the Server Settings of the POP accounts you have unchecked "Leave messages on the server" there might be no messages left on the server to download in the new IMAP accounts...

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Dirki
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Re: How can I change my pop e-mail accound to IMAP?

Post by Dirki »

* Without posting your full email address, what settings do you have under menu path Tools->Account Settings Server Settings:
These ones for the new IMAP accounts:

Image

Sorry, I do not know how to switch to English, when I try to access the settings Thunderbird crashes.
User name : (Is it your full name or just the bit before the @ symbol)
Here it is the full e-mail address.
Since your POP accounts are still active and not yet blocked by Freenet they continue to download new messages.
Actually they should not. I had to create new accounts because the old ones stopped working on the 2021.12.3 (the provider sent an e-mail they would) because the provider changed pop to IMAP or so.
If in the Server Settings of the POP accounts you have unchecked "Leave messages on the server" there might be no messages left on the server to download in the new IMAP accounts...
Yes, I have. But I do not understand how the old pop accounts could go on working.

And the leave message on server option is not available in IMAP?
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tanstaafl
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Re: How can I change my pop e-mail accound to IMAP?

Post by tanstaafl »

The leave message on server option makes no sense for a IMAP account since it permanently stores the messages in remote folders on the IMAP server. Whenever you open one of those messages Thunderbird fetches the message from the server and loads it into memory. It does this every time. This is the opposite of a POP account which downloads new mail to your hard disk and then opens the local file as needed.

POP and IMAP accounts have a very different view of the world. A IMAP account lets you fully access all of your webmail folders for example. A POP account only knows how to fetch/delete/list mail in the remote inbox. http://kb.mozillazine.org/IMAP

What makes things more confusing is that by default Thunderbird also creates offline folders (using mbox files just like POP accounts) but they're not used when you are working online. This is managed by the accounts synchronization & storage settings. That mbox file is a convenient way to make a backup but you can't rely upon it preserving the messages. Thunderbird keeps synchronizing the remote and local/offline folders. If you delete a message in the remote folder it is automatically deleted in the offline folder too. If you want to use that mbox file as a backup you need to copy it somewhere safe.

Its possible to have a POP and IMAP account for the same email address at the same time. However, its best to enable "leave messages on server" in the POP account to minimize problems due to who saw a new message first. In your case (where your email provider stopped supporting POP) I suggest you move any downloaded messages in the POP account that you want to keep either to the IMAP account or folders in "Local Folders" and then delete the POP account.
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tanstaafl
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Re: How can I change my pop e-mail accound to IMAP?

Post by tanstaafl »

A lot of email providers document one set of settings but quietly support one or two other configurations too. If the new account wizard says the settings were fetched from the Mozilla ISP database its usually best to use them as those are the ones that your email provider submitted to Mozilla.

Most of the web sites that I can find describing the IMAP settings for Freenet such as https://www.postbox-inc.com/setup/email ... -imap-smtp and https://getmailspring.com/setup/access- ... -imap-smtp use port 993 and SSL/TLS for the IMAP server. Its only the SMTP server that uses StartTLS.
Dirki
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Re: How can I change my pop e-mail accound to IMAP?

Post by Dirki »

The leave message on server option makes no sense for a IMAP account since it permanently stores the messages in remote folders on the IMAP server. Whenever you open one of those messages Thunderbird fetches the message from the server and loads it into memory. It does this every time. This is the opposite of a POP account which downloads new mail to your hard disk and then opens the local file as needed.
So if I do not have an Internet connection the messages on an IMAP server are not shown. An extremely big drawback, I would think. How can I get those messages to the drive / download them to the drive like it is done with POP e-mails? So that I can open them without Internet connection?
A POP account only knows how to fetch/delete/list mail in the remote inbox. http://kb.mozillazine.org/IMAP
But that would be enough for me. Thank you for the link.
What makes things more confusing is that by default Thunderbird also creates offline folders (using mbox files just like POP accounts) but they're not used when you are working online. This is managed by the accounts synchronization & storage settings. That mbox file is a convenient way to make a backup but you can't rely upon it preserving the messages. Thunderbird keeps synchronizing the remote and local/offline folders. If you delete a message in the remote folder it is automatically deleted in the offline folder too. If you want to use that mbox file as a backup you need to copy it somewhere safe.
So I would have to find and just directly copy that mbox file only while I am online to back it up? There is no such option in Thunderbird?
Unfortunately I am not able to switch the language of Thunderbird to English. It looks like as if under "Storage" the IMAP messages are downloaded:
Image

Very confusing that all.
Its possible to have a POP and IMAP account for the same email address at the same time.QUOTE]
So that is what I have now, I guess.
However, its best to enable "leave messages on server" in the POP account to minimize problems due to who saw a new message first. [/
But that way I would not know what e-mails I have read and answered already, I assume.
In your case (where your email provider stopped supporting POP) I suggest you move any downloaded messages in the POP account that you want to keep either to the IMAP account or folders in "Local Folders" and then delete the POP account.[/
In the four new IMAP accounts there is not a single e-mail, they all go to the (old) POP accounts automatically.
A lot of email providers document one set of settings but quietly support one or two other configurations too. If the new account wizard says the settings were fetched from the Mozilla ISP database its usually best to use them as those are the ones that your email provider submitted to Mozilla.

Most of the web sites that I can find describing the IMAP settings for Freenet such as https://www.postbox-inc.com/setup/email ... -imap-smtp and https://getmailspring.com/setup/access- ... -imap-smtp use port 993 and SSL/TLS for the IMAP server. Its only the SMTP server that uses StartTLS.
Sorry, I am not quite sure what this means. Is there anything I should do? Thank you for the links.
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Eckard
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Re: How can I change my pop e-mail accound to IMAP?

Post by Eckard »

Dirki wrote:
nderbird?
Unfortunately I am not able to switch the language of Thunderbird to English.

Yes, you can change the language of the Thunderbird GUI.
Go to Extras > Einstellungen > Allgemein > Sprache and click on "Nach weiteren Sprachen suchen .."

Image


A new window "Spracheinstellungen" will open. Select the English language version (language pack) you want to use :

Image
Dirki
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Re: How can I change my pop e-mail accound to IMAP?

Post by Dirki »

Many thanks, also for the screenshots.

Yes, I cannot access the settings, after clicking "Einstellungen" / "Settings" Thunderbrid gets inaccessible, fades out / gets milky, "No response" and sometime crashes, respectivley when I click the closing cross a few times it crashes.

Image
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