I think you need to understand that email is an embracing term that includes IMAP and POP mail. There are also proprietary protocols such as thise used natively by exchange.

IMAP mail is synchronised to the mail server in all things. POP mail is stored locally and leaves nothing on the server unless you actively set it to do so.

Both outlook and Thunderbird can create local folders for accounts configured as POP, although I may be biased when I say I prefer the Thunderbird implementation. IMAP mail accounts can also be stored locally, but the mail must be copied or moved from the account into the Thunderbird "local folders" account for storage off line.

Your issue may be your university echange server. Exchange does both IMAP and POP, but it is turned off by default in preference to pushing outlook and the native exchange interface to outlook. So it may depend on the ability to use IMAP on your university account. Or an add-on to Thunderbird that can work with exchange. (there are a couple of methods.)

Matt, thanks so much for the timely response. That alone is a big plus for switching to Thunderbird.

I used to use Eudora, then ended up using gmail, but my messages are eventually deleted and lost. I want to keep messages on my hard drive, preferably arranged into folders for different correspondents.

So I started using Outlook on my Mac, and it gets messages from my gmail and my campus Outlook365 accounts. I have not investigated whether they are POP or IMAP, but will, given your advice.

I tried to make a folder in Outlook on the Mac, but new->folder was grayed out. Lots of others have posted the same issue. Some research suggested I need to make the folder in gmail but that doesn't help with emails coming through 365 and I don't really understand. Our secretary Bea emails me on both accounts and I want a Bea folder on my hard drive in which her emails are put regardless of which account it comes through. I also have 5 computers I use regularly, it's OK if one is designated as the place to save the msgs, or all save the msgs.

Any further help would be greatly appreciated. I recall Thunderbird is supposed to be closest to Eudora and I like Mozilla.

Jim

Forget the similarities to Eudora. they will trip you up. In many regards it is more similar to outlook express. With bits of TheBat! thrown in.

While you are looking for an offline arrangement, I think you will probably be best server retaining your gmail account as IMAP. Only IMAP will manage the syncronisation of the messages that you will undoubtedly need.

Thunderbird has "virtual folders" These are folders that contain "search results" except they display as a folder in their own right, you could say a saved search. Really they contain nothing, the mail is in it's original location. But they can be a powerful aggregation tool. So you configure the search to find all the mail coming from Baa to all addresses and save the search as a "virtual folder" for mail from Bea.

Thanks again Matt. Where do messages in that "virtual folder" reside? It's fine if instead of containing separate folders, it contains all messages and Thunderbird can select them by filtering, as "labels" do with gmail. I just want them to live on my hard drive.

Keeping gmail as IMAP, from what I've read, means when gmail deletes msgs from their cloud, they also get deleted from my hard drive, at least in Outlook. That defeats my purpose of moving away from gmail, to control my messages.

So I guess my question is, can I store my messages on my hard drive with Thunderbird? Will an IMAP account's deletions be mirrored on my computer?

Thanks...

Ok, lets back up a little.

With multiple devices you almost have to use IMAP. In my case I do have a pop gmail account configured in Thunderbird to download all mail from the account and I recognize that things done on the desktop do not reflect back via gmail to the other devices (phone and tablet) although send mail does due to the way Gmail handle SMTP. One the other devices I use IMAP on the same email account as I use POP on my desktop.

With POP all data resides on the local machine, to the point backups are your responsibility. It is to use the old term inviolate as far as actions from the server. No server deletions have an effect on a pop account because their is no synchronization, only a download of new mail.

Just be sure when you enable POP on Gmail that you get the "from" date right. They like to set it from "today" so you get no old mail.

Thanks Matt, I'm cogitating in this and will reply shortly.....