Changing from POP to IMAP - can I save emails on my Mac?

[ss957916]

I currently use a POP but, because of all my iPhone issues and it automatically redownloading 3,500 emails everytime I do a fresh install of the OS, I want to change to IMAP.

My email provider says that, by doing that, all the emails on their server will vanish. Losing my emails is not an option!

So, is there a way of saving the emails locally on my Mac?

Thanks.

 

[BlueRevolution]

Yes. Just click the + button at the bottom of the list of mailboxes, select New Mailbox, and create a box on your Mac. Drag the messages from your inbox into the newly-created mailbox, then repeat for every other mailbox. Once you have your IMAP account set up, you can drag the messages back to the remote mailboxes and they will be uploaded to the server and from there to your iPhone.

 

[ss957916]

Really?!

Wow, ok.

I was worried that deleting emails from the server and then syncing would make Mail delete everything from my Mac.

Great - thanks for the help.

 

[USMCfirefighter]

Isn't there a way of telling your server to delete the files after one day or so? This way you'll have time to save the emails. I think that's what I did in my POP account.
Mail, Preferences, Accounts, Advanced. Hope this helps.