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The scenario is:
- an IMAP server with little space (say 1GB)
- quite a few IMAP clients (say 2 phones, 1 tablet, 3 PCs) with an email client such as Thunderbird 38.3 or later
What I'd like to achieve is this:
- all PCs clients should keep a full copy (not just the header) of messages
- all PCs clients should save locally any message deleted remotely (i.e. move full message to a local folder before deleting it from its own IMAP folder, as a result of syncronization)
This way one could save space on IMAP server while keeping a local copy of all (full) messages on each PC (provided that PC clients are syncronized when an email is deleted from a non-PC client -- avoiding deletion from non-PC clients could be a workaround to ensure that local copies are complete).
I found some related questions that address similar scenarios (like this and this), but none gives a solution to this question.
I believe that this is quite a common need, so I hope that some email client guru, hopefully Thunderbird, come up with a solution.
possible duplicate: http://superuser.com/questions/354280/how-can-i-force-thunderbird-to-download-all-emails-by-imap
– emirjonb – 2015-11-03T11:51:34.520@emirjonb Don't think so, copying all messages from IMAP folder is not the point of my question. In my scenario the IMAP folder has little space, meaning that it can keep (say) few weeks of emails; that's why I need to create a local copy of emails when they are deleted from IMAP folder to make room. – mmj – 2015-11-03T12:08:41.610
ok than it is another option on configuring mail client that if you delete from server it won't delete the local mails. Or you can use POP3 on your clients in place of IMAP. POP3 by default download all emails and doesn't delete if the emails are deleted on server, so you can have all your mail locally and manually delete them if needed. – emirjonb – 2015-11-04T08:13:58.313
for the first solution link here: http://superuser.com/questions/369737/thunderbird-do-not-delete-local-copies-of-imap-messages
– emirjonb – 2015-11-04T08:26:16.980@emirjonb I had seen that question/answer, but I could not make it work, because no filter was able to create a local copy of sent emails; the new (Thunderbird 38) "after sent" filter does not work, at least for me on a Gmail account). – mmj – 2015-11-04T08:51:44.537
I'd move on a larger server (like Gmail - no adv intended). You keep your existing address by forwarding from your current mailbox or by server to server POP3 retrieval (again, Gmail can do that in many cases). You can copy / move existing messages on the new account with Thunderbird (it may take a while, but you don't have to sit there while it's happening) – SΛLVΘ – 2015-11-04T18:16:28.327