POP and IMAP mailboxes

[Alberto Gianolio]

I have happily been using Eudora to pop my mail for the last 25 odd years, I am currently using version 7.1.0.9.
I have changed my main server from pop to IMAP, created the account, everything works hunky dory.
The only issue is that pop sent incoming mail to the "In" mailbox and sent mail to the "Out" one, IMAP created new "inbox", "drafts", "sent" and "trash" mailboxes. I know that it is a silly thing, but would it be possible to map the IMAP "inbox" and "sent" to the In and Out mailboxes that pop used ?

In case it is not possible, I have a backup question: IMAP mailboxes appear under the old pop ones, is there a way to bring them to the top ? I tried renaming the IMAP persona thinking that it was only a matter of alphabetical order, but it is apparently not.

Thanks a lot for your help,

Alberto

[John H Meyers]

On 6/5/2013 4:50 AM, Alberto Gianolio wrote:

> I have happily been using Eudora to pop my mail for the last 25 odd years,
> I am currently using version 7.1.0.9
>

> I have changed my main server from pop to IMAP,
> created the account, everything works hunky dory.
>
> The only issue is that pop sent incoming mail to the "In" mailbox
> and sent mail to the "Out" one

By which you mean the original built-in mailboxes named
"In" and "Out," which are local files in your Eudora "Data" folder.

> IMAP created new "inbox", "drafts", "sent" and "trash" mailboxes.

Does this happen to be for a Gmail account?

> Would it be possible to map the IMAP "inbox" and "sent"

> to the In and Out mailboxes that pop used ?

No, because the fundamental idea behind IMAP
is that those mailboxes are not files on your computer,
but in fact are files stored at the remote end,
and which, in part because they are on different servers,
which can have different file and folder structures,
and also because other IMAP clients can even be
dynamically creating and re-arranging those remote folders at will,
have to be separately mapped on your screen, for every separate
IMAP account that you have defined.

However, if you have both a POP account and an IMAP account
defined for the same Gmail account, you can continue
to use both accounts in parallel, in which case all mail
that you download via POP will continue to appear
in the Eudora mailboxes that are "resident" on your computer,
and mail that you send, using the identical Gmail SMTP server
for both POP and IMAP, will continue to be shown in the remote
Gmail "Sent Mail" folder, as well as in your local "Out" mailbox.

Conversely, everything you send during web access to the same Gmail
account will not only appear in "Sent Mail" on the web, but will also
be fetched by your POP account (personality) that fetches from Gmail.

These Gmail-specific details are due to higher intelligence built into Gmail,
designed to eliminate the need to forward self-composed messages
to yourself, as well as to ensure that mail "sent" using even a POP
personal email client will always appear in a remote "mailbox,"
without having to send yourself a "blind copy" or make
special settings in an IMAP account.

Another thing that can be done with most personal client programs
is to "drag and drop" mail between local and remote mailboxes,
which will generally actually transfer that mail,
allowing an "upload" of any old mail archives on a computer
to any "cloud-based" account that provides IMAP access.

IMAP is thus actually bi-directional (upload and download)
in that sense, whereas POP is a download-only protocol,
designed around the original thought that there was only
a limited-capacity "P O Box" at the incoming server end (P.O.)
not designed for accumulating or permanently storing mail,
which the provider wanted you to visit and empty out regularly,
otherwise you'd soon hit your "quota" and they wouldn't
even accept any more incoming mail for you.

Eudora was thus originally solely a tool for visiting your
ISP-provided "Post Office" to collect and remove all your mail,
which inspired original program author Steve Dorner
to name that program after Eudora Welty, literary author
of such popular stories as "Why I Live at the P.O."

<http://www.eudora.com/presskit/backgrounder.html#name>
<http://art-bin.com/art/or_weltypostoff.html>

> In case it is not possible, I have a backup question:
> IMAP mailboxes appear under the old pop ones,
> is there a way to bring them to the top?

I don't think so, but ask this ant:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWZ-pLUb9L8>
(sorry for poor audio)

Another version with different lyrics, by the same fella:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QENSOU7r2IU>

--

[John H Meyers]

On 6/5/2013 4:50 AM, Alberto Gianolio wrote:

[John H Meyers]

On 6/5/2013 4:50 AM, Alberto Gianolio wrote:

> IMAP mailboxes appear under the old pop ones,
> is there a way to bring them to the top?

Why?

If you want to "collapse" your "POP mailbox tree,"
create at least one mail _folder_
then move all mailboxes except In/Out/Junk/Trash
into that folder (or set of a few folders, however you like),
then you can collapse that "tree."

--

[Alberto Gianolio]

Thank you John,

let me clarify a bit: I have used a pop account on a server for many many years and have collected mail using Eudora. I have a vast mailbox structure with tons of files. I recently had to switch to a different mail server that does not support pop but only IMAP. Luckily I can still use Eudora to get my mail, my fiters work well (obviously), but the inbox is the issue. At the moment, as I said earlier, inbox (and sent, drafts, trash) appear at the end of all (old POP) mailboxes. This means that whichever mail is not filtered remains now in the inbox and I often fail to see it promptly because it is now not immediately visible, whilst earlier the In mailbox was at the very top and I could immediately see when it was bold (i.e. with new unread messages). Hence yes, I could move the existing In messages into the Inbox by dragging them, but this would not solve my problem. What would, is either sending the IMAP mail to the (old POP) In mailbox at the top, or move the IMAP Inbox from the bottom to the very top.
Thanks again !
Alberto

[John H Meyers]

On 6/7/2013 3:47 AM, Alberto Gianolio wrote:

> let me clarify a bit

It already was :)

> I have a vast mailbox structure with tons of [local] files

[in your Eudora "Data" folder]

> I recently had to switch to a different mail server that supports only IMAP.

> At the moment, as I said earlier, inbox (and sent, drafts, trash)
> appear at the end of all (old POP) mailboxes.

"At the end of old POP mailboxes" makes it sound, to onlookers,
as if it's just a few more POP-like mailboxes, which just happen
to be so ornery that they get listed out of sequence, but this
doesn't do justice to the reality of the situation, which is
that those IMAP mailboxes are "in another galaxy," as they might say
in "Star Trek," and not even "warp 10" could bring them any closer
to where your _local_ files (POP mailboxes) are stored.

As we tried to convey earlier, every IMAP account is in
its own galaxy, not only separate from your "local (POP) galaxy,"
but also just separate from each other, so if you had
two IMAP accounts, say, even if you could swap which galaxies
are above or below the others,
and no matter what popular email client you might use,
you'd still have entirely separate mailboxes, like this:

"In" (local file for downloaded POP mail)
"Inbox" (incoming mail for IMAP account #1)
"Inbox" (incoming mail for IMAP account #2)
[Etc.]

And each of the above would merely be the first
of a possibly vast collection of its own mailboxes,
in which case you could not bring even any two of those three mailboxes
any closer together, no matter how you "stack up your galaxies."

I understand that since your entire mental focus is now
solely on "IMAP account #1," you'd like that entire account
to be displayed first, but "classic" Eudora doesn't do that.

I mentioned how, FWIW, you could instead "collapse"
the first (local) galaxy into a minimal number of lines,
by moving all your "tons" of user-created mailboxes
(other than Eudora's built-in and required "basic four")
under one single new, collapsible "upper level" folder
in the "POP tree,"
but you haven't replied what you think of that idea.

In addition, it so happens that the "Recent mailboxes" list
(a feature of Eudora version 7.1.0.9 only), which appears
very near the top of the entire tree, remembers recently opened
IMAP mailboxes, as well as recently opened local POP mailboxes,
and you can open any "recent" mailbox
by clicking on its entry in the "recent list" itself,
without having to scroll down to the other galaxies,
and the IMAP mailbox names having new mail are even shown _Bold_,
so now there's a second new and brilliant idea for your evaluation
(no one's saying nice things about me today,
so I have to start being more self-sufficient in that regard :)

Best wishes.

--

[Alberto Gianolio]

Dear John,
Thank you for your kind replies and your patience, not to mention your brilliant ideas ;-)
I think that I now understand better how IMAP works and what are the differences with POP.
Your idea of collapsing all the pop mailboxes is good, but the fact is that I still use them (filters send IMAP mail into them).
I was wondering whether it would be possible to drag all pop mailboxes onto the IMAP account (inbox ??) such that the whole structure is built onto the IMAP server and its content transferred there. This way I could indeed collapse the whole pop structure and forget about it (or even delete it to avoid having all the attachments duplicated onto my disk) and simply use the IMAP one. This obviously has the drawback of using more disk space on the server.
Would it work ?
Kind regards.

[John H Meyers]

On 6/10/2013 6:11 AM, Alberto Gianolio keeps trying:

> I think that I now understand better how IMAP works
> and what are the differences with POP.
>
> Your idea of collapsing all the pop mailboxes is good,
> but the fact is that I still use them (filters send IMAP mail into them).
>
> I was wondering whether it would be possible
> to drag all pop mailboxes onto the IMAP account

> such that the whole structure is built onto the IMAP server
> and its content transferred there.

> This way I could indeed collapse the whole pop structure
> and forget about it (or even delete it to avoid having all the attachments
> duplicated onto my disk) and simply use the IMAP one.
> This obviously has the drawback of using more disk space on the server.
> Would it work ?

Didn't you just say that you now understand how IMAP works, as well as
what distinguishes the POP mailboxes from the IMAP mailboxes?

Here's your "pop quiz" on it, for review :)

o Where does mail downloaded via POP get stored?
o Where does mail received into an IMAP account get stored?
o What occurs if you drag locally stored mail to a remotely stored location?
o Where does the next mail downloaded via POP go, after that?

If any question seems too theoretical to be sure of the answer,
simply confirm by actual experiment :)

Best wishes.