Thank you for your very helpful reply.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Security Copy - yes a backup to an external drive is what was meant.

When you say close, if you mean close the programme so it is not running then it cannot retrieve email at those times.

BUT most email programmes when you minimise them are still running, and will give you an alert (e.g. mail envelope on the system tray area - icons in the bottom right).

So really depends on if you mean minimise or close.

Thank you. I meant minimise. Its good to know that Live Mail will still work this way.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

A big advantage of having the emails locally is that if the BT mail server is not accessible, e.g. broadband broke or they have servers down for maintenance you can still search your email on your PC.

Thanks; I do appreciate that benefit. While I can see that Live Mail (or similar) has the benefit of preserving your mail if the ISP loses it; I think that also having your mail on webmail means that it is preserved if your PC dies.

Presumably having both is the best solution?

In reply to a post by Jelly_Tussle:

I don't think I have made it clear on this thread (my apologies) but I already have Premium Mail for which BT charge me £1.60 a month.

I presume if I change ISP; I would carry on accessing my webmail as if nothing has happened?

On face-value, the answer is YES!

However, given that it is always possible that silly errors can occur during transfer, I would certainly recommend that you get all of these locally backed up as a precaution!

In terms of belt and braces yes

In reply to a post by johnjburness:

In reply to a post by Jelly_Tussle:

I don't think I have made it clear on this thread (my apologies) but I already have Premium Mail for which BT charge me £1.60 a month.

I presume if I change ISP; I would carry on accessing my webmail as if nothing has happened?

On face-value, the answer is YES!

However, given that it is always possible that silly errors can occur during transfer, I would certainly recommend that you get all of these locally backed up as a precaution!

Ok; thanks for the advice. I think I'll need to figure out how to download all my e-mail locally; not just my inbox but all my contact e-mails as well before I swap ISP's.

Cheers.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

In terms of belt and braces yes

Many thanks for that.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by Jelly_Tussle:

I don't know what IMAP is; let alone how to set it up to collect my e-mail. If you can point me to where to begin; that would be great.

Luckily BT Mail does do IMAP (for reading) and secure SMTP (for sending), see: BT email: What are the settings for outgoing and incoming mail servers?.

I've had a quick look at the link. I'm sorry to say it is mostly double dutch to me.

I cannot see how to change my settings in Live Mail to import anything other my Inbox.

My 'Sent' e-mails as well as the 'Draft' and 'Junk' folders have not been imported. And more importantly I have separate 'Contacts' folders for many dozens of people that contain thousands of e-mails. Those I would now live to copy into Live Mail and I cannot see where to begin.

Any help or advice would be very much appreciated.

Many Thanks

Three things .

As well as Live Mail working while minimised, it should have a setting somewhere to make it load when Windows loads, i.e.when you switch your computer on. It may have defaulted to that when you installed Live Mail. See if you can find the setting and check that it did.

Your contacts list probably needs you to export it from where it is to a CSV file. (CSV - Comma Separated Variables). You should be able to export it to a folder on your computer. Then import it from there into Live Mail contacts.

How strange that the Sent and "Contacts" folders etc haven't copied down. They do if using Thunderbird.

Edit - a fourth.
I assume you have message rules set up on your BT email. I think there is a bit of messing around needed to get things as you want them, but it can be done.

Second edit - Crossed out the first main paragraph - a brainstorm, sorry, as pointed out by XRaySpeX. I was thinking of including a shortcut to it in the Start(up) folder of Windows in versions before Win 8. What version do you have?

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 14-Feb-14 01:58:48)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

How strange that the Sent and "Contacts" folders etc haven't copied down. They do if using Thunderbird.

POP3 only reads Inbox. You using IMAP in TB?

There is no essential diff between diff mail clients; they all have same functionality; just diff ways to skin the same cat.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

it should have a setting somewhere to make it load when Windows loads

WLM doesn't! Nor does TB as far as I can see, does it?

Of course you can always set it up manually in the [Run] section of the Registry.

I thought the OP was using IMAP in Live Mail. I wonder if he is using POP3 with retention on the server? That would explain it, as you say. I forgot the latter possibility when I asked if the emails were still visible on the server.