How to change existing POP account to IMAP
Seriously folks, you are all aware that Verizon is handing 4.5 million e-mail accounts to AOL. You must provide a clear means of migrating to the new setup for two types of users: Number 1 - existing Thunderbird users who had a POP setup with Verizon and now need to change it to IMAP for AOL, and Number 2 - new users who wish to migrate to Thunderbird in order to avoid the trashy AOL ads and popups. Plus it seems every posted solution doesn't ever seem to keep up with the latest rev. Please identify which Thunderbird rev is the target of these instructions. We're up to 52.0.1 now, right? The only way I have found to make the migration is to disable the pre-existing POP account, create a new IMAP account, then move folders over. That’s a lot of work. Surely there’s a simpler way to do this.
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Yeah, I've seen this solution. But it's a long and difficult process when you're dealing with hundreds of sub-folders and thousands of messages. There must be a way to just switch from POP to IMAP in the account settings without having to go through all this file movement. Is anybody from Mozilla listening?
I guess you know better.
You have the instructions. I doubt they are going to change the email standards for you.
By the way, the instructions must be written for an earlier version of Thunderbird. They don't seem to track what I have for Thunderbird 52.0.1 (32-bit). For what version were these written? Try to follow the instructions for deleting a pop account.
Delete your POP account
If you are converting your email account to IMAP from POP, you can delete the POP account when you are completely sure that you have moved all your important messages to the IMAP server (or into your Local Folders). You cannot easily undo this action, so make sure that you really don't need the messages stored in this account any more.
Open your account settings by opening the menu Tools > Account Settings , then select your POP account. Click on the Account actions button at the bottom and select Remove Account.
Is there a particular part of that process that doesn't work for you? I do know that all the steps it describes do work, but there are some wrinkles in that with a default setup you may not be able to see a menu, and one of the buttons may show a different name. Also, if you are using OSX or Linux then the exact menu sequence may also be different.
Over to you; tell us where or how the wheels come off.