Apple Mail: switching from POP to IMAP and preserving my Inbox

Christopher Davis2 wrote:

I was having problems with my POP account (and/or my host and their servers). So now I am switching to an IMAP email account. I could not just modify the type of account, so I have to create a new IMAP account for the same email.

Now I am about to delete the current(old) POP account. It is warning me that doing this will delete all settings and messages. So... everything in my Inbox will be deleted? I can't risk this.

I exported a back up of my email account.

But I am still very nervous about deleting the POP account with this warning.

Will it in fact delete my entire Inbox on my local computer?

See the warning message attached below.

Thanks for any help

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/fbb10b64-6467-4bed-9f72-60879084bd1c

This is a great question to ask your mail provider or look at their help site.

Christopher Davis2 wrote:

My domain name is after @.

Then you should listen to your hosting provider. If the copies still exist on the server, you'll still have access to them.

If it were me, I'd export the messages, first, though.

Import or export mailboxes in Mail on Mac - Apple Support

Christopher Davis2 wrote:

My email software is Apple Mail. My hosting provider said local emails will not be deleted, but then he wasn't sure and said better stick with POP then, if I am worried. Not exactly inspiring.

The warning about deleting everything when removing an email account came from Apple Mail

any mail account you delete is going to give you that warning.

Christopher Davis2 wrote:

My email software is Apple Mail. My hosting provider said local emails will not be deleted, but then he wasn't sure and said better stick with POP then, if I am worried. Not exactly inspiring.

The warning about deleting everything when removing an email account came from Apple Mail

What software you used to access the email is not the same as who your email provider is. What does it say after the @ symbol on your email address?

I know this thread is nearly a year old but I was looking for answers and I have a suggestion (which I haven't tested). If you install a second email client such as Airmail (which I've already done as I wanted one which could send HTML emails), you can set up the second client to receive the new IMAP account, leaving Apple Mail interacting with your POP account until the conversion is complete. Your Apple Mail will fail to connect when the switch has happened, but it will have downloaded everything before this point. You can now archive all the POP emails and delete the POP account, then set up the IMAP account in Apple Mail and (if unwanted) delete the second email client. This is what I'm intending to do when I move my domain from one host to another and switch from POP to IMAP. Let's hope it works!