This doesn't really go into any relevant Maemo forum hence why it's here.

So a long long time ago I had all my accounts setup to POP3. So across my laptop and desktop in Thunderbird I have several gmail, hotmail accounts setup to POP3 (this is not a thread asking how to switch it over).

When I'm busy I don't have time to clean up, sort through, and delete old emails. Yet I want to convert these accounts into IMAP while keeping the existing emails.

My question is (for anyone that has tried this). Will converting them over result in..

a) all the POP3 emails synced back to server?
b) all the POP3 emails will be deleted for good?

If it's b) then I guess my only path is to save those emails to a folder and then change it over.

Anyone try this before?

It's not too technical to achieve, just tedious, the only caveat is that your mail client software has to support multiple mail accounts, but most do these days so that shouldn't be a problem...

Assuming you have your POP3 account already set up in Thunderbird/Eudora/Outlook/Whatever, create a new account with the login details for your IMAP server. Create whatever folders/sub-folders you feel you need in your IMAP account.

Once you have this working, you should be able to drag and drop e-mails from the POP3 account (folders stored locally on your computer) to the appropriate folders in your IMAP account. Once you're happy that you've got everything the way you want it, just remove (or disable) the POP3 account.

Simples.

Hmm I guess I'll just throw all my files into a temporary local folder. Switch Gmail and hotmail accounts to IMAP from their web interfaces, update the settings in Thunderbird to IMAP and toss the emails back in (or store them in a folder that's not the inbox).

Thanks.