Can I change from POP to IMAP?

[Peter Schwart]

How do I do it? Do I just change the servers in the account configuration?
Do I delete the POP account and create a new IMAP account? If I do so, can
I still access all the mail that is now in the POP account? Email is
confusing :-)))

[Alan Montgomery]

Post by Peter Schwart
How do I do it? Do I just change the servers in the account
configuration?

No

Post by Peter Schwart
Do I delete the POP account and create a new IMAP account?

no - if you delete the account it will delete all the mail

Post by Peter Schwart
If I do so, can I still access all the mail that is now in the POP
account? Email is confusing :-)))

The simple way is to disable the existing account - uncheck the check
automatically and the check when manually checking items, and rename the
account (assuming the new account has the same name)
Create the new account.


A more integrated way may be possible by editing the accounts.ini in the
mail directory. You will need to change the incoming protocol as well as
server. There may be other changes required. Make sure you have a backup
of the entire mail folder before you start, and that Opera is closed
before you edit the ini file.

A third way is to export all the existing mail, then delete the account,
and create a new one and then import all the mail to the new account.
Again make sure you have a backup before doing this.

[Peter Schwart]

Thanks for your quick reply. After reading your advice I think I'll opt
for the third way. I don't know much about ini files. Unless somebody
points out which "switches" to change I will try the export option.

Is the Opera .mbx file format pretty standard? Am I locked in to Opera or
is it possible to change email clients later on? (Not that I want to since
I am a big fan of Opera. But who knows what comes up in the future)
First I could not understand the Opera idea of labels and "I wanted my
folders back". But after figuring the labels I could not be happier with
the flexibility and speed of the searches and display options. Well done
Opera.

[Elias Fotinis]

Post by Peter Schwart
Thanks for your quick reply. After reading your advice I think I'll opt
for the third way. I don't know much about ini files. Unless somebody
points out which "switches" to change I will try the export option.

Yeah, that seems the most straightforward way. I'd also go for that option.

Post by Peter Schwart
Is the Opera .mbx file format pretty standard? Am I locked in to Opera or
is it possible to change email clients later on? (Not that I want to since
I am a big fan of Opera. But who knows what comes up in the future)

It's as standard as it gets. Pretty much every email-related program supports the mbox format. It's also just a text file and thus you can use your own programs to read it. For example, I keep very old mail in MBS files (i.e. outside Opera) and use Python scripts when I occasionally need to find something.

Post by Peter Schwart
First I could not understand the Opera idea of labels and "I wanted my
folders back". But after figuring the labels I could not be happier with
the flexibility and speed of the searches and display options. Well done
Opera.

Same here. Initially I didn't see much in label tagging, but it's perfect for things like mail.

[John H Meyers]

Post by Elias Fotinis
Initially I didn't see much in label tagging,
but it's perfect for things like mail.

Which is why Gmail is also built around it.

Gmail also has one more label called, guess what?

"Inbox" !!!

So simple:

Every incoming mail message initially gets that label, and the
"Remove label" button shown with Gmail's "Inbox" is called "Archive";
otherwise it's just another label, like all the others.

Because of that genius, Gmail's Inbox can contain
both "read" and "unread" messages, which is what
everyone expects and needs for feeling completely at home,
able to use "read"/"unread" as a separate, meaningful distinction,
also never risking having a message vanish from sight and be lost,
just by being accidentally read.

Each IMAP account should come with an Inbox anyway,
because that's built into the IMAP model, IIRC, on the server side.

I even have a local "Inbox" for an Opera-defined POP account,
although I think I had to create it myself, and it's not
absolutely foolproof because I had to rely on "Received:" headers
to initially identify incoming mail messages, as distinct from
newsgroup postings, the later of which I think Opera's model
better fits than real email, for which it is unfit, due to the very
lack of the powerful "Inbox" concept, not replaceable by "unread" alone,
which the entire user world (rightfully) expects to have at its disposal.

I already presented this case years ago, just summarizing it now.
Does Opera yet come with an "Inbox" label these days, even if optional
(defaulting to "show Inbox" might be best), since it was all so obvious
how important that was to potential users, including the zillions
who have moved to Gmail and Google Apps mail?

--