Mail access problem

It's a miracle! Everything is now working as it should, even a problem that I had not mentioned has been resolved. And I did it sort of by accident, did not follow everything we have discussed.

First: I found in User Groups on this computer that I had two users that appeared to be the same, both were me, one under my first name and the other using my full name and both were administrators. I deleted one of them.

Second: When exploring those users I realized that I had somehow missed an update or two to the OS so decided to do the update. In order to do that I had to quit Mail and did that forgetting to first go to Sys Prefs etc as noted above. Also, had not yet turned off the iPad which is in another room, so it was still alive on the network.

When the update finished, there was a message that Mail had been updated. The message above did not appear. So I opened Mail and waited for a while while it rebuilt everything without being asked to do so. It is all there again!!

From this I conclude that my initial question about whether the iPad is a computer that could complicate resolving the issue is: no, it is not. And the fact that it is POP rather than IMAP turned out to be no problem as well.

Thanks again for being there and giving me the confidence to go forth and do something to solve issues that arise with complicated (to me) technology all by myself instead of paying someone else to take care of it.

I asked in the Mac forum because the Mail problem is on the iMac, just want to be sure that the iPad won't be a problem as I go forward to try to fix the problem on the iMac. I do have Mail set up on the iPad as well.

No, I cannot access anything. I did move a few folders some time back but did not complete the project.

This is a screenshot of the notice. I do not have anyone that I can consult since I am my own system administrator and I am not any sort of expert. I just follow instructions and ask questions of the real experts.

I will note that when the problem appeared I was on a different system and sharing an internet connection with someone else. That has changed and I am no longer sharing that connection, I have a new connection that is all my own and I live alone.

I can probably live with losing my saved emails, so if you have no other suggestions I will probably just follow the instructions and see what happens.

Thank you for answering my questions so far.

It is a POP account. Does this mean that there could be a problem?

OK, if I turn off the iPad before trying to rebuild is there hope?