Before you start I'd recommend to make yourself familiar with how POP and IMAP work. Google is your friend. This may be a good start. https://support.mozilla.org/kb/glossary-terms-including-types-accounts#w_mail-accounts

Then see https://support.mozilla.org/kb/faq-changing-imap-pop

christ1,

Thank you very much. " If everything is working as it should (which means you can send and receive email and see your old emails; note that some email providers may not give you access to all of your emails or all your email folders; check with your email provider)" still doesn't answer unequivocally that my existing folders and messages will remain on Thunderbird after switching to POP3.

My understanding is that there is a synchronisation function that addresses this issues .. pls add steps accordingly.

In the light of the above quote I shall also check with my email provider before taking action. Any further information will be most welcome.

Thanks again.

POP connects to the inbox on the server and nothing else. What do you hope to achieve by switching formats?

Thanks Airmail,

IMAP leaves messages sitting on server and this is eating up a lot of disc space. With POP3, my understanding is that once a message is downloaded from the server, it will no longer remain there and I can store everything on my hard drive.

There is a special account in Thunderbird called Local Folders. You can make folders in that account and move messages off the imap server and into those folders and accomplish the same thing. You can read about Local Folders here. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Local_Folders

Thank you christ1 and Airmail .. matter resolved .. Warm regards