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How to keep AOL emails in Thunderbird while deleting them in AOL

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 20 views
  • Last reply by Zenos

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I'm getting out of AOL. They do not have an easy way to move their email to another platform so I used Thunderbird to get all of my email out of AOL. Every email came over just fine. However, once I went back to AOL and deleted them from AOL, they also were deleted in Thunderbird. So that tells me they are not copy's, but just a link to the AOL originals. How can I delete the version in AOL but keep the version in Thunderbird?

I'm getting out of AOL. They do not have an easy way to move their email to another platform so I used Thunderbird to get all of my email out of AOL. Every email came over just fine. However, once I went back to AOL and deleted them from AOL, they also were deleted in Thunderbird. So that tells me they are not copy's, but just a link to the AOL originals. How can I delete the version in AOL but keep the version in Thunderbird?

Chosen solution

  1. Create a folder in Local Folders where you want to store them
  2. Select the messages you want to save
  3. Right-click, select Move to…
  4. Select the new folder you created in step 1
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All Replies (3)

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Sounds like your account is an IMAP account. Then the behavior you observe is exactly what's expected. You's need to copy your messages from the server to your 'Local Folders' account. Once all messages have been copied to your local disc, you can safely delete them from the server.

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What are the steps for doing that?

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Chosen Solution

  1. Create a folder in Local Folders where you want to store them
  2. Select the messages you want to save
  3. Right-click, select Move to…
  4. Select the new folder you created in step 1