Hi Kathy, > This is quite interesting. What is Thunderbird? Is that your > internet provider? Or just an email provider?
It is a free email program that you install and run on your computer. http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/ I use Thunderbird to download the mail from my Gmail account to my own computer, so I don't have to be online to read my mail and I'm not relying on my email provider to be up and running every moment of the day to access my emails. I can still choose to read my mail on their server, and compose and send from there, too. Being online might not seem like a big deal these days with broadband, but it can be essential if you're on dialup or are restricted in some way to how much time online you have available. Also, I live in the country, and the internet service isn't always reliable here. If you have hiccups with your ISP and can't get online, it can be very frustrating - especially if your ISP is telling you to refer to an email they've sent you to resolve the problems and the only copy is on their server which you can't access 'cos you can't get online! This has happened to my sister and her work computer; after that hassle I installed Thurnderbird on her computer, and every time I went to her office to work for her I'd open TB and download all her mail from the server. In that situation it was a backup for her, she didn't use TB to read and write her emails, but it was there if she ever needed to access her mail without being online. Everyone has hassles at some time or other, and sometimes you just can't access your ISP's server - for whatever reason at either end. If you've downloaded your emails, you've got them on your computer to reference at any time. If I'd come to emails after services like Gmail came about, I might not bother with an email program - and my husband, a software developer, has told me several times that I shouldn't be using an email program any more, but should be working only on the web. But I *have* come from a different background (having first gone online way back in 1992, to keep in touch with him when he was working overseas) and have my own requirements, and this suits my needs. Being able to save individual emails as discrete files is very important to me, and not just for my genealogy. If your service offers a POP service, then you can download your mail. You don't have to delete it from your service's server - that's a choice for you to make. I choose to keep *everything* on the Gmail server, except spam, but delete many emails from Thunderbird on my computer once I've read them. Hope this helps. :-) Wendy Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
