I use IMAP and pop a one gmail account, it causes no issues, but I do leave mail on the server.

With the POP account I would suggest you use a set retention period say 14 days or 30 days. That is because you can not disable an account in Thunderbird. If it is there Thunderbird will try and get mail for it when you select get all mail from the menu.

The use of drop box is seriously not a good idea. I have seen to many tears from accidental bad syncs that just do not play nicely. Much better to use imap to keep an up to data working set and have a canonical archive.

Perhaps you might be a good candidate for running an in house mail server. Not to send you mail, but to hold your archives. It is a fairly simple process to use a consumer NAS to run a mail server instance that fetches your mail and then Thunderbird just accesses that from all instances using IMAP and the NAS becomes the canonical repository of all you mail.

Thanks, Matt.

This is very helpful. I think you understand what I'm trying to do, which impresses me! Storing the mail on Dropbox seems to work for Polarbar's mailer, but I see from other comments that people have had issues syncing it with TB. I'm still trying to figure out how I might be able to use IMAP and avoid quota limits. If I could, then it would allow me to access the mail from multiple computers.h

From what you say, I gather I could do the same thing that I am doing now, all from within TB perhaps? In other words, I'm wondering if I use both IMAP and POP configurations in TB to access a single mail account on my isp (on my domain mail), if it would work as long as I always leave the mail on the server in IMAP. That way I could access the mail from multiple computers. Then, I could use the POP account to occasionally download the email so as not to exceed my quota (say only once every one or two weeks (as I am using PolarBar to do now). It seems the big disadvantage for me would be that the downloaded mail would only be accessible from one computer. Is it possible to store all the mail in an accessible archive format somewhere, perhaps in Dropbox? Or from what you say, a NAS would be the way to go? Since I'm not an IT expert, I worry about it being a bit difficult to set up.

Thanks much for your advice!

Fred

To be blunt "you are not getting it"

The pop account in Thunderbird will download mail every time Thunderbird gets mail. The setting you tweak it the leave on server in server settings. Exactly how long you set this time frame to be will depend on how much mail you have going into the account. it might be 7 days or 7 weeks, you will have to determine that. The Thunderbird pop account will basically age your mail and delete at the appropriate time.

The NAS is somewhat technical. this is a link to setting it up on a synology device. I picked it as a popular consumer product. I don't have one. https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/DSM/tutorial/Collaboration/How_to_set_up_MailPlus_Server_on_your_Synology_NAS

I figure with some instructions you can make you own mind up.

You do have other options, you could create a gmail account, set it to retrieve mail from your ISP account and delete on access. or prhaps your ISP offers mail forwarding, you put the gmail account into the ISPs mail and they forward all mail as it arrives.

You then use the gmail account in all of your access of mail actions. You can still send mail using the ISP account, or the reason I suggested gmail is they will let you send mail from the account using their server.

This is a better discussion than I can write on using gmail. what I do not know is the frequency the accounts are checked, but every 15 minutes comes to me from somewhere. https://www.pcauthority.com.au/feature/how-to-setup-gmail-as-your-universal-email-inbox-246007

But you are not restricted to gmail, although I would avoid Apple and Microsoft, they appear to be prone to corporate lock-in decisions Like apple making calendar use outside apple products very very difficult and Microsoft pushing activesync instead of open connection protocols. Yahoo just appears to be lost in the corporate maze. GMX is a good choice, easy to use, simple to create account. Not my primary provider, but only because I did not know about them when I was going to gmail from Yahoo and Hotmail.

Based on what you have said, I think the gmail route is probably going to be the best for you.(works, is non technical and minimal overheads.) But make sure you opt out of any spam filtering being done on the accounts gmail is set to fetch, otherwise that mail may well drop into the big bit bucket in the sky. Not huge, but the false positives might be.

Thanks, Matt. I appreciate it greatly. I had also started to wonder about a gmail solution. Maybe it would be the easiest thing for what I want to do. I will look into it. The issue is really simple, just being able to access the account on multiple computers, and not have to worry about storage quotas at my email provider. I think a lot of people must have this same issue, unless they use gmail. So gmail and forwarding might be the most elegant solution, especially if I can use my domain name. Thanks again for your kindness!

Fred

I use Gmail IMAP for my mobile needs. I use locally stored POP for my desktop needs. I do leave mail on the gmail server, but that was because of poor understanding way back more than anything else.