[BlueOnyx:26487] Re: POP sent to IMAP sent

[Michael Stauber]

Hi Meaulnes,

> I guess all of you guys use IMAP on all of your computers, so you don't 
> have this problem... I was looking for a solution for fetching my Sent 
> folder contents automatically from my office desktop computer to the 
> remote Sent folder on the server.

Like Taco and Chris have already mentioned: This day and age IMAP is 
really the best choice if you want to use the same account on multiple 
devices AND have all emails (sent and received) accessible everywhere.

I was in the same boat many years ago and was still using POP3 on an 
important account. Eventually it really became too much of an hassle 
when using multiple devices for checking emails.

Here is what I did: In Thunderbird I disabled the account that was still 
using POP3 and excluded it from being checked. I also renamed it to 
"username at server.com (POP3)" to make it really obvious: That's one old one.

Then I recreated the account in Thunderbird (using the same server, 
username and password), but configured it to use IMAP instead.

That way I now had two configurations in the email client for the very 
same account: An active one using IMAP, and a disabled one that used to 
use POP3 before it got disabled and was now excluded from regular email 
checks.

Now there were a few recent messages (and replies of mine) that I wanted 
to be present on the server and accessible via IMAP. So in Thunderbird I 
selected those messages and copied them from the disabled POP3 account 
to the now active IMAP account. Which then uploaded the messages via 
IMAP to the server. Then I set up a sensible folder structure and sorted 
the messages into the right folders.

If there were still a message older than that which I needed? I still 
had the old POP3 account data in Thunderbird and could fetch 'em from there.

So it's really not too much hassle to switch from POP3 to IMAP in the 
email-client. To the contrary: That little discomfort during the switch 
is repaid tenfold from there on.

Also, when you do this: Email clients usually also allow you to 
configure how long they keep messages on the server before deleting them 
there, or what to do with messages after that expiry date. Especially 
with IMAP (which usually leaves emails on the server) you should set up 
some sensible expunging or archiving.

Depending on the accounts typical usage I leave emails on the server for 
a few days or so and then archive them into either an IMAP folder on the 
server, or a local folder on my PC.

-- 
With best regards

Michael Stauber