up vote 1 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

My ISP uses Gmail for their email handling - but, sorry Gmail lovers, I don't like it. I much prefer a desktop mail client; Thunderbird specifically at present.

However, I've had a computer failure and really need - if at all possible - to be able to download the entirety of my Gmail folder via POP from my ISP's mail servers. I know about IMAP, I know about the webmail interface, but they won't do what I need unfortunately - which I accept is an odd requirement!

The mail is, as far as I can tell, still on the server but Thunderbird won't download it because it's not marked as new. Is there any way around this?

link|improve this question
You can download all messages over IMAP; just drag and drop them to a local folder. You can even upload them to another IMAP server. Also, OfflineIMAP, getmail, fetchmail for making automated local backups. – grawity Nov 3 '11 at 14:08
IMAP is also cached locally, or at least can be in Thunderbird. I do it. – horatio Nov 3 '11 at 16:27
feedback

2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

Prefix the username with recent: to activate the "recent" mode, which will download all mail from the last 30 days.

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 0 down vote accepted

Thanks to Grawity for pointing me in the right direction, but I've now found the even better option - 'Backing up your mail with POP'. http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=34030&topic=1668962

(Which seems to keep locking on individual messages and so requires rather more hand-holding than is ideal, but never mind... It's progress.)

link|improve this answer
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.