Setting up a temporary POP3 account for email backup and migration

Thunderbird is a full-featured mail client developed by Mozilla. It is secure, free open-source software. Thunderbird stores your emails, contacts, calendar events, etc. as normal files in a normal folder called your profile folder, unlike Outlook's problematic PST and OST files. Profile folders are very easy to manage and back up. You can simply copy and paste your profile folder onto a USB stick or an external drive, or back it up with Imaginet's Stratus Cloud Backup. Thunderbird also works well for backing up emails from an account that you've set up as IMAP in Outlook.

Install Thunderbird

Download the installer for your operating system here Run the installer to install Thunderbird.

Setting up your account for backup

Please note that this is not the normal setup procedure. Resist the urge to click Done, and follow these steps carefully. You will need the password for your email account, and the POP3 server address.

1. Open Thunderbird
2. Enter your name, email address, and password, and click Continue
3. Click Manual Configuration
4. Under Incoming server select POP3 for Protocol
5. For Hostname enter your Incoming server address
6. For Username, enter your full email address
7. Click Advanced config
8. Accept the warning and continue
9. Under Server settings, DISABLE the For at least option and ensure that Leave messages on the server is TICKED
10. Enter the correct username, password, POP3 server address and authentication method as provided by Imaginet or your current hosts.
11. Accept the pop-up and restart Thunderbird
12. Your emails will now be downloaded.

If you want, you can see our article Backing up your emails in Thunderbird for instructions for creating a copy of your Thunderbird profile.

Transferring your email from Thunderbird to a different mail client

There are two methods for transferring your mail form Thunderbird to a different mail client.

Drag and drop

You can hold ctrl on your keyboard and click and select multiple emails or folder in thunderbird, and simply drag them out of the window into a folder, or into Outlook.When you drag emails or folders out of the Thunderbird window into a folder they will be saved as .eml files. These can then be dragged and dropped or imported into the mail client of your choice.

Via IMAP

Follow the steps here to upload your mail to a server via IMAP. Once the upload is complete, you can set up your account in the mail client of your choice, to sync with your mail server.