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I used Thunderbird as an email client for my outlook.com email address (IMAP option) to download all of my outlook ( aka Hotmail folders and messages). If I go

adamhammer
adamhammer
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I used Thunderbird as an email client for my outlook.com email address (IMAP option) to download all of my outlook ( aka Hotmail folders and messages). If I go ahead and delete this outlook.com email address I will still have access to these old Hotmail emails within the Thunderbird email client right on my windows PC , just wanted to double check this out!

I used Thunderbird as an email client for my outlook.com email address (IMAP option) to download all of my outlook ( aka Hotmail folders and messages). If I go ahead and delete this outlook.com email address I will still have access to these old Hotmail emails within the Thunderbird email client right on my windows PC , just wanted to double check this out!

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jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 25 Contributor
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Maybe not!!

IMAP folders are a mirror of what you have on the server. In order to archive those to folders that are independent of what you have on the server, you may need to copy/paste the mail to new folders under Local Folders (you may notice those sitting, unusued, in the left pane of your mailbox).

On the other hand, if you break the mirror by putting in the wrong password for the account and setting Thunderbird not to synchronize, that might work just as well, since then Thunderbird would have no idea what you did with your mail on the server side.. Hopefully someone with personal experience can chime in on that.