Move existing emails between providers

You would need to check if the new provider offers any way to directly transfer the IMAP folders from the original service.

If the original service allows POP3 connections for receiving emails, then an email client running on your computer configured for a POP3 connection would download and locally save all of the received emails on the server. You could have the email client set to not remove the emails from the server when downloading. That would allow you to double-check that you are not missing any received emails for any reason.

andynic said:

I am using an IMAP account with my providers. Is there a way to save the mails that are on my original provider's server in an email client on my computer?

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Yes. Using Thunderbird. Can't say for any other email client. I do that with three IMAP accounts. And can move or copy any message(s) to another provider's folder or, more conveniently, to a local (not associated with any provider) folder.

Thank you so much for your reply. I will give it a try.

You're welcome.

One more question:
As I said above, I have changed internet (and hence email) providers. At the moment the mail from both my providers comes into accounts in the Windows 10 Mail App.

My old provider uses an iMAP account.

I plan to use Thunderbird to keep the emails from my old provider.

My question is this:
If I create in Thunderbird a POP account for my old email provider, will that conflict with or damage/delete the emails that are on my old provider's server which is currently working with an iMAP account in Windows Mail?

Thanks for your help.

I would try to stay away from the possible (probable with me!) confusion of using POP and IMAP with different email clients on the same provider. If you do I suggest that you for the POP account you definitely follow Chuck's advice "You could have the email client set to not remove the emails from the server when downloading."

Thank you Terry for your reply. The only reason I want to do that, i.e. keep the iMAP config on the Windows Mail and the POP acct in Thunderbird, is that I just want to transfer the emails on the old provider to my computer and have them permanently there for reference. Once that is done, I will delete the account from Windows Mail. Then I plan to phase out the old provider entirely having the old provider forward any new emails to my new provider until my subscription expires. I assume that plan is ok?

Sounds good.

Thanks for your reply, Terry.

You're welcome.

andynic said:

I plan to use Thunderbird to keep the emails from my old provider.

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I have not used Thunderbird for a few years to check this. I believe that Thunderbird IMAP options include the ability to force Thunderbird to download the contents of specific IMAP folders from the server to your local hard drive. I am not sure if it will keep the folder structure on the hard drive.

Thanks, Chuck. I'll look into that.

That is cool! Thank you.