How would I go about getting an email setup like this?

[Sergeant Pepper]

So, last night I was reading "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow (great book, by the way) and the main character mentions that he has his email set up like so:

"I didn't keep any email on my server. I downloaded it all and kept it on my laptop at home, which downloaded and deleted my mail from the server every sixty seconds."

I'd like to get my Gmail account set up like this. I've tried to figure out how to do it on my own using Thunderbird, but I haven't gotten anywhere. Any help is appreciated; thanks in advance!

 

[apfhex]

Use Gmail POP instead of IMAP. Tell Thunderbird to remove messages from server immediately after download. Have Thunderbird check for new mail every minute. Keep a backup of your Thunderbird database unless you wouldn't mind loosing all your mail.

Edit: Actually I don't know if this will work with Gmail, it might keep all your messages regardless. May want to consider another email service if this is really important, though I don't know why as it seems like it would end up being pretty inconvenient.

 

[Slovak]

Use Gmail POP instead of IMAP.

Actually I don't know if this will work with Gmail, it might keep all your messages regardless.

Gmail does good with POP. Under Settings | Forwarding and POP/IMAP | POP Download: you can choose what you want Gmail to do with the messages:
1) keep in inbox
2) archive
3) delete