If your folders are in Local Folders, they will stay. When removing the POP account, be sure to keep local data. To be 100% safe, you might backup the profile first to give you peace of mind.

Pop accounts do not synchronise with server. Pop accounts can only gain access to the server 'Inbox' and download whatever is in the server Inbox into the Pop account Inbox. All emails downloaded to a Pop account are a fully independent copy from the server. Any emails you delete will probably only have the gmail 'label' removed and result in the email being archived - aka still stored in the 'All Mail' folder. This is because Pop accounts do not have any access to the gmail server Trash folder. This means periodically you need to logon to webmaila ccount and check the 'All Mail' folder to remove old deleted emails and reduce the used quota.

Imap accounts synchronise all folders with the server. Imap accounts can only display whatever is on the server. The folders you see on the server will be the same folders you see in the Imap mail account. You can create new folders, subscribe to see them and they will be visible in both Imap account and on the server. As all imap folders synchronise with server folder, you cannot consider the imap accoun to be an independent copy. If you delete an email, it will get put in server 'Trash' folder. If you do not empty the TRash then gmail will delete any email that has been in the Trash for 30 days. This will delete the email from the 'All Mail' folder and is not recoverable (unless you have a separate backup copy)

re :, if I switch my Gmail account and my TBird setups to IMAP, will the additional PC and Laptop folders disappear?

The pop account folders do not exist on the server, so Imap account has no knowledge of them.

You will only lose those folders if you delete them. So read on....

To create an imap account, you cannot simply swap the server settings of a pop account. They work differently and get stored in different locations. You have to set up the imap account as a completely New > Existing Mail account. It uses a completely different set of folders.

Option: Stop all accessing of POP to gmail account via Account Settings. So the account still exists but is not accessing server. OR and this might be preferable to stop confusion - get copies of all those pop folders and put them into the 'Local Folders' mail account. Then remove the Pop account via Account Settings > Account Actions.

How to get copies of all folders into the Local Folders mail account.

• Exit Thunderbird
• In bottom search type : %Appdata% and select the 'Appdata' file folder option
• Select 'Roaming'
• Select 'Thunderbird'
• Select 'profile name' folder

• Right click on 'Mail' folder and select open in new window, then select the 'Local Folders' folder.
• Leave this window open ready to receive files.

Back in 'Profile name' folder

• Click on 'Mail' folder
• click on 'pop mail account name' folder
• You need to get 'Copies' of all the mbox (no extension) files and all the folders with a *.sbd extension and paste them into the 'Local Folders' account - other window.

Please see images below which will help you as an example guide.

Before you create the IMAP gmail account, please make sure you have this setting:

• Logon to gmail webmail account and make sure the setting to use 'Imap' is selected.
• It's in the 'Settings' > 'Forwarding and Pop/Imap' section
• Select the 'Enable imap' option.

In Thunderbird check this is selected.

• Menu icon > Preferences / Settings > Privacy & Security.

Web Content

• Select checkbox 'Accept cookies from sites'

then create account: 'New > Existing mail account' Enter email address, password and select 'Remember password' Click on 'Continue' Thunderbird will look up imap configuration settings by default. When you click on 'Done' imap account is created.

The 'Authentication Method' will now get set up as 'Oauth2' automatically. It will need the cookies in order to create the Oauth token. Once imap is created, you will get a browser like prompt from google to log on using password in order to allow Thunderbird access to server.

Thanks, that is what I thought. Perhaps I should add the extra folders that I have in TBird to my G-mail account, it might take me while to do but I have been considering the change for about a year, so a few days/weeks more wait will not kill me. Backing up the profile routinely is always a good idea. Stay safe, Peter B.

Today, I spent most of the day making sure that my TBird folder structure matched the GMail labels structure, word for word. That is a start to the changeover process from POP to IMAP. I just looked at the settings in my gmail, see picture. It is setup for POP and IMAP. I have TBird installed on of several machines. Is it safe to switch one of them to IMAP to see what happens? Lots of questions.

Just add he account as IMAP to one of them. Remove nothing. Note that you probably should rename the account you are going to add again in the account settings pane. Simply adding a 1 to the existing account name should be enough to prevent the new account wizard complaining about the server already existing. (I have IMAP and POP of a single Gmail account in my profile, along with a load of other odd settings, just to see if it could be done.