Mail: changed from pop to imap account will my emails be deleted?

[drummerlondonw3]

Hey,

I hope that someone can help. I have just moved my university alumni account from a pop server to an imap, this was long needed but I just hadn't got round to doing it.

However, I have turned off the account so now I have an inactive pop and an active imap for the same e-mail address.

My question is - I have emails saved in the 'on my mac' folders from 2+ years ago. If I delete the pop account will these be deleted as well?

If so is there a way to archive these for viewing or will I have to keep the pop account as inactive?

Thanks in advance for any help on this, I am really concerned that I could lose all my old e-mails

ps - I know this is a long post but I was tring to make it as clear as possible, if any of it is not clear please post and I will attempt to clear things up

d

 

[Lau]

No, I'm pretty sure everything on your Mac will be safe. Just to clarify – this is in the Mail application on your Mac, and under the "On my Mac" heading on the sidebar, you've created several folders yourself, yes?

If so, that should all be safe.

If you want to back it up, just to be on the safe side, you can back up your library folder, which contains all those files as well. User>*YourName*>Library.

 

[drummerlondonw3]

Hi Lau,

thank for the quick response. That's correct, its on the on my mac sidebar in the mail app

I had thought that because it was a pop account and the emails were downloaded and stored 'on my mac' that there were local copies

Just to confirm - I can go into prefs and delete the account and the folders will remain?

I will create a copy on my desktop of the folder, if it doesn't work out I will have to ask you how to restore though, I am not experienced in that!

d

 

[Lau]

I'm pretty sure that's the case, drummerlondonw3. As they're local copies, the account could no longer exist and they'll be safe.

The only thing I'm not 100% sure about is deleting the account from Preferences. Deleting it won't delete the emails, but I'm slightly worried you then wouldn't have access to them any more through Mail (even though they'll still exist in your Library). I'm pretty sure it'll be fine, but maybe wait and see if someone else can confirm it. I'd hate it to all go wrong on my advice!

Making a copy of the Library is a good idea though, for sure.

 

[drummerlondonw3]

Just like to say I went ahead and its all fine and perfect!

Thanks Lau for the help, as mentioned in my first post I am not an expert on this at all, definitely e-mail accounts and wireless networking are my 2 blind spots, although I have set up quite a few w-networks so getting better there!

thanks again

david