topic Re: Downloads in Email

Downloads

FuzzyBear — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 12:25:59 GMT

Hi.

My partner is having issues with the e-mail, due to the imminent closure of the service by Plusnet, and to misunderstanding of how little aid their technicians will give, resulting in mailbox size issues (among other things).

We have looked through various menus and can see an ability to download e-mails as Mbox or Maildir, but no information on a) which is the better option, b) how we use these files to import elsewhere, c) what applications allow us to access and open them as we could when they were on the server, and d) how to avoid re-downloading the older ones each time.

Can anyone please advise ?

A second issue, which may be better asked at a Thunderbird forum, but since I’m here I’ll ask here first. I have been saying that she ought to be ok as she uses a Thunderbird client and that will certainly have been downloading to her local disk. I checked this morning and to my utter horror discovered that, that particular client creator has thought it amusing not to create a local inbox folder, so nothing has ever been downloaded to it ! I found out how to create the folder but I have no idea how to set automatic downloading (let alone successful downloads being deleted from the server). I assumed there would be something in the comms set-up but I must be missing it. If, as a secondary issue, anyone can help with that, we would be grateful.

TIA

Re: Downloads

bmc — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 12:46:26 GMT

@FuzzyBear

Can't help with the e-mail problem but there has been no announcement of PN e-mail services closing. There were rumours of this happening a couple of years back.

Brian

Re: Downloads

jab1 — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 13:01:32 GMT

@FuzzyBear Like @bmc , I am a little confused as to why you think the closure of the PN mail service is 'imminent'. Was this a comment from whoever you spoke to?

How is you Thunderbird client set up - IMAP or POP3?

Who set up TB in the first place - in its vanilla state, TB has Inbox/drafts/sent/deleted folders by default?

Re: Downloads

markhawkin — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 13:40:34 GMT

@FuzzyBear

I used Thunderbird for a while and it's oddities made me move to (Microsoft Office) Outlook (to distinguish it from the free offering).

If you use IMAP on a Plusnet mailbox there will at least be a local and Plusnet Server copy of the email.

You can either copy (or export) emails to a local file (there are various Thunderbird export tools I believe).

Then paste (or import) the emails into a new account.

Depending on the computer platform, Outlook (the mail service), GMail or iCloud might be good choices to move mails to.

Re: Downloads

jab1 — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 13:43:32 GMT

@markhawkin What 'oddities'? I've been using TB for 20+ years and found it to be a very proficient and configurable client.

Re: Downloads

markhawkin — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 13:48:46 GMT

@jab1

Not relevant in this case, but I had (and have) accounts with some "legacy" email providers which didn't work well with Thunderbird.

It's the providers at fault rather than Thunderbird (they also play up on my iPhone with the Apple client) but the path of least resistance was to move to Outlook which hides their non-performace better from the user.

Re: Downloads

jab1 — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 13:50:17 GMT

Fair enough, @markhawkin .

Re: Downloads

FuzzyBear — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 14:33:39 GMT

Thanks for all responses so far.

I was speaking to a Plusnet agent on the phone this morning. He said that the company didn’t provide much in the way of help and users had to find things out for themselves. Also advised that the company was going to be a broadband supplier only so folk are advised to look for alternatives for e-mail.

I don’t think I need to move much from Thunderbird as it hasn’t been downloading much (anything) from the server anyway. It seems it was just connecting the PC to the server as an interface.

I tried to see how the client was set up, hoping to find a reference to either POP or IMAP then go from there, but have yet to find where these settings are. Thus the supplementary question. I'll have another look and see if I can find it.

Re: Downloads

FuzzyBear — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 14:35:02 GMT

Plusnet have already begun the process of withdrawing our free email service, and both new and existing customers can no longer obtain a mailbox account. We would strongly suggest switching your existing mail service to an alternative third party provider of your choice, to avoid any loss of data when we inevitably terminate the service over the next 12-18 months.

Re: Downloads

FuzzyBear — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 14:41:47 GMT

Ah ha. Just spotted a left hand column that comes up at a certain point in the settings. Easily missed if lookng at the setting on the main part of the screen.

Using IMAP apparently. Not seeing how to get it to auto-download to the local inbox folder I created though.

But there again, info on the Mbox and Maildir was the main issue. But advice on either gratefully accepted.

Re: Downloads

MisterW — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 15:28:18 GMT

Using IMAP apparently. Not seeing how to get it to auto-download to the local inbox folder I created though.

You can't!.

IMAP keeps messages on the server and accesses them from there.

There are two options you can consider.

1) Select messages in the IMAP account Inbox and then copy them manually to your local folder.

2) Use the Synchronisation function https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/imap-synchronization . This won't copy them to the local folder you created but it will keep a copy locally

Re: Downloads

jab1 — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 15:39:44 GMT

@FuzzyBear Where did the content of post #8 come from?

Also, can you post a screenshot of your TB 'Home' page - deleting any sensitive information?

Re: Downloads

FuzzyBear — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 16:11:09 GMT

Post 9 ?

E-mail from the agent I spoke to.

Off out for now. Will get back when I can later today.

Re: Downloads

jab1 — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 16:12:38 GMT

Sorry , it was post #9.

Re: Downloads

Townman — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 19:30:14 GMT

Post #9 oh dear more ill informed drivel from front line support agents.

Yes NEW users do not have email functionality. As for the existing legacy users, there are no plans to take that functionality away … whilst they remain Plusnet broadband users.

Re: Downloads

paul_blitz — Sat, 06 Jul 2024 12:50:36 GMT

You should be able to set up a SECOND email account on your thunderbird: it will still point to your Plusnet email account, but you set it up using POP3 (rather than IMAP). You'll find the setup details at https://www.plus.net/help/email-guides/how-to-set-up-plusnet-email/

Once the POP3 account has downloaded all the historical emails, then, when you're happy, you can remove the old IMAP account (you'll eventually find that the emails will probably all "disappear"!).

When you set up the POP3, you can tell it how long to leave the emails on the server before deleting them: this can be useful if, like me, you have emails ALSO on your phone. My phone uses IMAP, so sees the emails left on the server: I have my POP3 set up on my PC to delete the emails after 30 days.. which means that my phone gets to see the last 30 days of emails - and anything older automatically "gets deleted" from the phone... so your phone won't run out of space!

MAKE SURE YOU BACK UP YOUR EMAILS on your PC: Thunderbird will tell you where the PC stores your emails: use the automatic backup software on a USB drive to regularly back up the email directory / directories, otherwise you could end up losing your old emails. Alternatively, use "cloud backup".

Re: Downloads

FuzzyBear — Sat, 06 Jul 2024 14:53:00 GMT

Thanks. Having trouble finding time to pop back here at present. Will check that out when I return home; thanks.

Re: Downloads

Townman — Sat, 06 Jul 2024 20:33:34 GMT

Mixing POP3 and IMAP is very bad kama and should be avoided even if you know what you are doing. Any perceived benefits of using POP3 to off-line / back up emails is a limp alternative to doing it properly through an IMAP client with good house keeping strategies.

POP3 does NOT “back up” the IMAP folder structure, particularly the sent items folder.

Re: Downloads

FuzzyBear — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 16:24:30 GMT

Just a quick (ish) update. We are presently at my place so it may be a while before we return to my partner's place to continue trying to solve this.

However I have just checked on the server and discovered her archived e-mails have been restored, so ensuring their safety is a priority.

Not finding the Plusnet guides helpful. I must keep looking in the wrong places, or something.

Before we left, I had concerns about changing her Thunderbird client settings to POP in case something went wrong and we could no longer connect. However on my PC I have a client named eM Client installed that I use for a secondary e-mail address, so I figured I would install that one on hers too, to see if it could connect. It turned out that it couldn't do so automatically, but I managed to sort it manually.

The trouble is that it didn't download her inbox to a local folder, and despite my best efforts I finally called it a day and hadn't retried before leaving.

In addition it isn't clear to me if all folders would get downloaded if I found out how to get it to download at all. Maybe only certain ones get copied ?

Maybe I need to try a third client ?

I'll try to spot what settings mine is set to and see what I can do from here.

I've not checked the IMAP synchronisation yet.

Re: Downloads

Townman — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 17:30:57 GMT

As above, if you do not know what you are doing - stay away from POP3 configurations. Using POP3 rather than user controlled archiving via an IMAP client is likely to lead to utter confusion.

POP3...

Only downloads the INBOX
It does not see / recognise IMAP folders
Is does not download the server's SENT ITEMS folder
It keeps sent items ONLY locally thus they are not accessible on other clients

The right way to archive IMAP sever content is to implement and run email archiving on the IMAP client in a manner which YOU implement and control. For example see - Archive older items automatically - Microsoft Support