Homestead mailing list

[Gloria Morris <gloriamorris59 AT gmail.com>]

I muddled through it. In case anyone else decides to try this at home, 
I'm going to share what went wrong (and right) so that you can hopefully 
avoid my mistakes! :)

1) The individual email files on my computer were all in the IMAP 
account of T-Bird, having been automatically created from my Gmail 
account - having never used IMAP, I did not understand its behavior and 
thus thought this was dandy.

2) I DELETED the individual email labels on Gmail and moved all mail to 
trash (fortunately, I did NOT empty the trash).

3) While I was pondering my next step, T-Bird checked in with Gmail and 
removed all of its computer-side folders from the IMAP account, and 
dumped all the emails to trash, mimicking what I'd done online in Gmail. 
I was temporarily horrified! :D

4) Once I recovered from the shock of seeing my files and emails 
automatically empty into trash, I went into Gmail and turned off IMAP in 
the settings area (both POP and IMAP were enabled - my mistake).

5) I created a POP account in Tbird and deleted the IMAP account.

6) I moved the trash in Gmail to the online Inbox.

7) I re-downloaded the whole shebang into the POP account.

8) I created new folders in Tbird in the Local Folders section (duh - I 
missed this important distinction the first time around and did not 
realize that my IMAP account folders were so ephemeral).

9) And then I painfully moved files, created new folders, and created 
new filters. This took some time.

But now, I believe I have a workable email system. I hope that this 
reduces the potential security hazards that I perceived with using Gmail 
and leaving emails in on-line folders. I really like Tbird's tabbed 
email system, its filters are easy to set up, and now that I understand 
the distinction between local files and POP account files and IMAP 
account files, I find its file system to be very usable.

So, for those who were thinking about doing it, learn from my mistakes. 
And jump on in - the water's fine. :)

Gloria
Feeling a bit more Geeky :)