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We have Thunderbird on 7 PCs and 3 phones. When we replace computer and set up new email boxes we end up with missing emails on some computers.

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  • Last reply by Wayne Mery

ArtisanEW
ArtisanEW
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Our server is Gmail and we have 8 gmail email addresses. We have an issue every other year when a PC dies and is replaced. Can't use IMAP because if something deleted on one device then it is deleted on all. Some of us just need to see an email but not reply and others need to reply. So we have generally used POP instead and manually told it to leave copies on server 30 days. In fact on a few devices that have never changed we use POP. Yesterday we got 2 new PCs set up on Thunderbird and did our POP settings to match the others and somehow emptied one gmail account at gmail, and 4 other devices didn't get emails at all.

We've read all the differences between IMAP and POP. Anyone else using POP on multiple devices? Any suggestions? Until we can afford a CRM program, this is the best we can do.

Thanks for your help.

Our server is Gmail and we have 8 gmail email addresses. We have an issue every other year when a PC dies and is replaced. Can't use IMAP because if something deleted on one device then it is deleted on all. Some of us just need to see an email but not reply and others need to reply. So we have generally used POP instead and manually told it to leave copies on server 30 days. In fact on a few devices that have never changed we use POP. Yesterday we got 2 new PCs set up on Thunderbird and did our POP settings to match the others and somehow emptied one gmail account at gmail, and 4 other devices didn't get emails at all. We've read all the differences between IMAP and POP. Anyone else using POP on multiple devices? Any suggestions? Until we can afford a CRM program, this is the best we can do. Thanks for your help.

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Wayne Mery
Wayne Mery
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Sounds like quite the mess. And you are probably lucky that nothing disastrous has happened so far.

I don't know your workflow, but it seems like you need more structure. But that's beyond what we can do here.

I'm going to approach your issue from the perspective that I very much dislike twisting pop accounts to serve strange business workflows. My rough suggestion below might work for you. I'd try it with just one account to see if the flow works for you:

  • change an account to imap on all PCs
  • on all PCs, in tools | options | display | advanced set Thunderbird to NOT automatically mark a message as read
  • assign everyone a number 1-9
    • when someone has read a message they mark it with their tag #
    • add the View widget to each person's Thunderbird toolbar. Create custom views if necessary so a user can show messages they have read or not read based on their tag# (or they can use quick filters
  • determine some rule which makes sense for you about who is allowed to mark the message as read. ("M" key)

That leaves you with this piece - determine some process for a) deleting messages, b) people to be able to keep messages they want to retain before they get deleted. Perhaps instead of deleting messages it would make sense to move messages to an archive in the imap account?


Explore whether any tag add-ons can help https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/search/?q=tags for example https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/tag-toolbar/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/tag-the-bird/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/tagsequence/

Or some other folder tools like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/quickfolders-tabbed-folders/