Converting from POP3 to IMAP and still using Local Folders
Greetings,
This is kind of long, but I am trying to put everything into context, so please bear with me. Also, please note that I have read several posts that describe situations that are superficially similar to this, but none that address all aspects of the situation.
I have a number of email addresses that I currently access through Thunderbird, using POP3 and SMTP. For convenience sake, I will give 4 example emails (none of these are actual email addresses):
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
All of these email addresses are handled through Google - the gmail.com addresses obviously via gmail, and the xyz.org addresses handled through GSuite (Google's domain and email hosting).
All of these addresses are currently downloaded using POP3 into the Local Folders of Thunderbird. After the messages are retrieved, I have a fairly large number of message filters set up to move the messages into various folders based on sender, recipient, subject, and body clues. Everything works just fine.
Now, however, Google has decided to discontinue POP3 access to GSuite - they are forcing all GSuite email to move to OAuth2 authentication, which isn't available via POP3 (and, I am sure they will eventually force this option onto gmail addresses as well). This means changing all the POP3 accounts currently set up to use IMAP instead. Not hard to do - just means deleting each account and recreating it as IMAP rather than POP3.
However, when doing this, each account now downloads email into its own set of IMAP folders, rather than into Local Folders - and any changes that my message filters make now are reflected server-side (which means they affect how emails appear when using, for example, a mobile device). As it happens, I don't want that. I want the messages to download into Thunderbird and have them go into Local Folders (for sorting by my message filters) *without* reflecting any changes back to the server. I have Thunderbird running on a local computer 24/7, and I use the Local Folders option to keep copies of all email, sorted into various folders, for reference and archival purposes - while I often use mobile device apps to read select emails that need to be addressed while I am at work or on the move, and mark those emails as read once I have dealt with them.
So, my questions:
1) Can I set up multiple IMAP accounts in such a way that the messages are received into the Local Folders Inbox (the way POP3 has always done this) rather than into dedicated IMAP folders?
2) If 1), above, is possible, can I then use Message Filters to handle those messages *without* reflecting any changes in status (marking messages read, changing folders, etc) back to the server?
My *guess* is that I will have to use some sort of message filter on each IMAP account to copy (as opposed to move) received messages from each IMAP account into the Local Folder Inbox - but then how do I trigger additional message filter processing once that copy has been placed there? I really don't want to have to go through and recreate all of my message filters for each IMAP account (as many of the filters apply across different email addresses, which would mean duplicating these filters for each IMAP account, as well as changing options in each filter to *copy* rather than *move* emails into various folders)....
Anyway, any suggestions would be appreciated.
Alla svar (4)
1. No. You can move with filters, and copy. But what you propose is ugly and in all probability not all that reliable. It will also have a visible inbox and other folders for each account. 2. As 1 is not possible this is sort of mute.
I suggest you follow bug 1538409 as this change is still 6 months away for new users and a year out for existing users per Google's blog post. Hopefully long before then Thunderbird will do the oAuth thing for POP and this whole question will be moot, you will just change the authentication method for your existing accounts.
Matt,
Thank you for the pointer to the bug report. I will keep an eye there, in hopes that OAuth support will make it to POP3 on Thunderbird prior to the deadline that Google has established.
I agree that copying messages from the IMAP folders and marking them for further processing is very much a kludge. I just couldn't think of another way that didn't involved hours (potentially days) of manual message filter editing.
Thank you for response, and the info you provided.
"..hopes that OAuth support will make it to POP3 on Thunderbird prior to the deadline that Google has established." =ie. wait and see =sounds good plan to me. Thx for heads up re this issue. Stephen, Linux TB user.
OAuth has made it to pop with effect from version 68.5. So just in time for yahoo and their February deadline, plenty of time for Google.