Lazy Aol User Needs Conservative Email Provider

when I “get mail” with Thubderbird, I “get” and yes “download it” into Thunderbird - all of it, and have Thunderbird’s setup arranged to instruct the ISP’s Email system to delete everything when it is passed to Thunderbird.

With junk mail filters and message filters in Thunderbird I can preassign just about any Email I get into a relevant folder I have (dozens) in Thunderbird.

First off I prefer to NOT sit on the web while I read/review/process my Email - I’m offline once my Email is in Thunderbird until I want to send/reply, which I do in Drafts and then send all the drafts at once.

I never, never ever exceed any of my ISP’s limits, no matter how many images and how big the images and how much data is sent to me in Email - nothing stays on the ISP’s website for more than 12 hours.

My active Email in Thunderbird is not stored on my PC’s hard drive; in fact ALL my own “stuff” is on an external USB connected hard drive and NOTHING of my own stuff is on my PC’s hard drive, and both drives have their own back ups.

When I travel, my Thunderbird Email travels with me on my remote, USB connected hard drive.

Nothing is either lost, or resident on my ISP for long.

Why play around with the ISP’s sloppy and cumbersome web-based Email system pages when having Thunderbird can simply use their system as a slave, give me my Email in my own computing environment and bypass everything else the ISP wants to share with me on their web pages.

In fact, while I have a major ISP with high speed fiber optic broadband, I absolutely never have any occasion or need to visit any of their web pages.

They provide two services to me - deliver TO ME essential Internet service, and deliver TO ME ON MY PC my Email.

I use Gmail because I like the attendent features associated with the Google account. As for the mail features, I have no problems whatsoever.

I don’t think you’re understanding. I do not use webmail with IMAP, not is it possible. Have never visited the email provider’s webpage except for initial setup. I use only the Thunderbird interface. Again, I do not utilize the web-based mail. Look up IMAP.

You must be in a privileged high-dollar-donor FReeper class if you have a Freerepublic email account capable of receiving external messages. I’ve never heard of it.

LOL. I hadn't either until about a year ago. If you click "account" and "edit account", if you are a paying member, you'll see a link for a vanity email.

Jim ought to publicize this a bit more.

Here's what it says for me:
As a valued supporter of Free Republic, we have reserved zeugma@freerepublic.com for your use. E-mail sent to this address will be forwarded to your Contact E-mail address. Current Value: Forwarding Enabled

Yup. That's me! I made that graphic about 12 years ago.

Later

Yes I know, and with IMAP I also know:

(a)When using IMAP4, clients often stay connected as long as the user interface is active and download message content on demand. For users with many or large messages, this IMAP4 usage pattern can result in faster response times.

I have no desire, in fact prefer to NOT “stay connected” as long aa the the user interface (my Email application) is active. And, without IMAP I still ONLY “download message content on demand”. “Respomse time” is not an issue with my monthly flat rate high speed fiber optic broadband connection.

(b)The IMAP protocol specifically allows simultaneous access by multiple clients.

Another useless feature for a single individual with a single (and no need for multiple) Email client application - a client application that moves, with all my computers as easily as the remote usb connected drive moves from desktop, to laptop, to netbook. I have no need for multiple Email clients much less simultaneous access by them.

(c)IMAP allows access to different MIME parts of message (such as the text only) without having to download other parts (like an attachment).

Another useless function as far as my operational needs are concerned.

(d) Through the use of flags defined in the IMAP4 protocol, clients can keep track of message state: for example, whether or not the message has been read, replied to, or deleted. These flags are stored on the server, so different clients accessing the same mailbox at different times can detect state changes made by other clients. POP provides no mechanism for clients to store such state information on the server so if a single user accesses a mailbox with two different POP clients (at different times), state information—such as whether a message has been accessed—cannot be synchronized between the clients.

More useless stuff when: (1)I don’t depend on a “server” other than the ISP’s server and I don’t leave ANYTHING on the ISP’s server once it has been downloaded into my Email client; (2)I don’t access the ISP’s server with multiple clients. Once in Thunderbird the states of “read” and “unread” and “replied” are not only identified but can be customized.

(e)The IMAP4 protocol supports both pre-defined system flags and client-defined keywords. System flags indicate state information such as whether a message has been read. Keywords, which are not supported by all IMAP servers, allow messages to be given one or more tags whose meaning is up to the client.

Once in Thunderbird the states of “read” and “unread” and “replied” are not only identified but can be customized. Messages in Thunderbird can have various “marks” set, such as “read”, as well as various “tags”, such as “important” and the user can define new “tags”, and by the use of Message Filters the use of both features can be automated. Proving there is no need to bother with a “server” and personalized setup on an external server to do what you can do with Email data within your own Email client (even if your only using poor old POP).

(f) IMAP4 clients can create, rename, and/or delete mailboxes (usually presented to the user as folders) on the server, and copy messages between mailboxes. Multiple mailbox support also allows servers to provide access to shared and public folders. The IMAP4 Access Control List (ACL) Extension (RFC 4314) may be used to regulate access rights.

I have multiple accounts - identified as such, on my one ISP’s server, as well as two “free” accounts on the web, and Thunderbird can download from one or all of them at the same time, and message filters in Thunderbird can put them in separate folders as I chose, or put any of them in one Inbox” as I chose - and I only use poor old POP.

(f)IMAP4 provides a mechanism for a client to ask the server to search for messages meeting a variety of criteria. This mechanism avoids requiring clients to download every message in the mailbox in order to perform these searches.

Useless to me. I not only have no problem with downloading every available message - I prefer to, and in Thunderbird, Message Filters can locate (during or after download, as I chose) and dispose of (assign a location or disposition for) messages based on a variety of criteria. No need for IMAP and or the ISP and or it’s servers to peform these functions.

(g) IMAP4 defines an explicit mechanism by which it may be extended. Many extensions to the base protocol have been proposed and are in common use.

A whole library of add-ons are available for the Thunderbird client app.

The supposed “superiority” of IMAP is not “superior” for me. I simply don’t need it.

Thanks and bump for later. I am also a lazy AOL user. I tried using comcast when I got on their internet service but couldn’t stand it.

Of course with your forwarding service people STILL would see my aol account and think I’m an idiot. Or worse - a liberal! But could still get the new email address out there but not worry if folks are still using the old one.

Thanks!

Of course with your forwarding service people STILL would see my aol account and think I’m an idiot. Or worse - a liberal! But could still get the new email address out there but not worry if folks are still using the old one.

I think you might be confused about this. (or I'm confused about what you're saying) When you get a forwarded address (pobox or whoever), you'd start giving out something like 21twelve@pobox.com. You could actually configure it to forward the mail to your aol.com email address until you're sure you really want to keep it, but I'd go ahead and have it forwarded to whatever email address your ISP provides. Over time, you'd see less and less traffic to your AOL address, and could eventually just set up an autoresponder that basically bounced messages to your aol mail back to the sender with a message that your email address has changed (you can do that with a 'vacation' or 'out of office' message).

There are free services out there that will host email for you, but most of them will have some kind of 'cost' in terms of advertizing or something attached to your mail. One of the reasons I use pobox is because it's a pay service, and I'm hoping that it is more likely to be around 5 years from now than something that is 'free'.

Reading through the last few messages, I realize I sound like a sales guy, but I'm not!