AOl is an IMAP mail provider, so simply adding your account to Thunderbird will see your mail downloaded from all folders.

Thanks for the reply. When Thunderbird downloads my AOL emails, will it put them in the proper folders or will I have to first create the folders and then manually move the emails into the folders myself?

• http://info.aol.co.uk/help/aol_settings/other_email.html

In your aol webmail account accessed via a browser, you may need to select 'IMAP forwarding' to enable it.

With IMAP you can select to subscribe to see folders already on the server. In Thunderbird right click on Inbox folder and select 'Subscribe' to see list.

Also you can synchronise subscribed folders. see additional info:

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/imap-synchronization

Also located this info:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_AOL_and_AIM_mail

I realized that I failed to mention that my saved folders were done with the AOL 9.6 Desktop application on my computer at home. There is an option to 'Save on my PC' into user defined folders. It is these folders that I would like to automatically import into Thunderbird using IMAP or POP3. When I check at work through AOL.com webmail I do not see these folders although there is the option to Save to folder on AOL's servers.

I'm still not sure if I should set up Thunderbird with IMAP or POP3 with POP3 set to save a copy on the server.

Thanks

I have no idea what format the mail application from AOL stored mail in. If my past experiences with AOL storage are a guide, something funny.

I went ahead and installed Thunderbird with 1 of my AOL email addresses that only has a few messages and configured as POP. Thunderbird downloaded and displays the messages but not the folders. I suppose I will set up my own folders and just move the msgs I want to save manually. I was relieved to find that using POP did not delete the messages from the AOL server. I'm not sure of the exact setting the would delete them from the server if I wanted to but I would rather do that manually.

POP mail accounts can only access and download from the server Inbox to your thunderbird pop mail account Inbox. They cannot 'see' any other folder on server. This is not a TB quirk but how all pop mail acounts work.

Pop mail accounts may download and delete the copy off the server. You can change settings to force TB to leave copy on server if required. Tools > Account Settings > Server Settings or right click on mail account and select 'Settings', then select 'Server settings' for pop mail account select 'Leave messages on server' Click on OK

If you have emails in other folder os server and want those emails downloaded to Pop mail account, do this workaround.

• In Thunderbird
• Move all emails out of Inbox into suitable folders, so you have an empty Inbox - this will make the next part easier.

• Logon to webmail.
• Move emails from folder to Inbox.

• In Thunderbird, click on 'Get messages' to download them.
• Create suitable folder and move those emails into folder.
• Repeat the process for each folder.

IMAP mail accounts see a remote view of the folders on server. You subscribe to see those folders. headers are downloaded and when you select to see an email, it is downloaded to a temp cache for viewing. You can also synchronise those subscribed folders to download a copy to the imap mail account, but those folders will be constantly synchronising to make the server folders the same as thunderbird. When you delete an email from either Thunderbird or webmail, that email will be deleted off both.