How to fix icarus, mailserv, or tigger email quota problems with Thunderbird (or Eudora or Outlook or whatever) with POP

This page explains how to use Thunderbird or another personal computer email program that's set up to use POP to fix icarus, mailserv, or tigger email Inbox quota problems. The instructions in this page are specifically for Thunderbird, but you should do the same things to fix your Inbox quota problems with any personal computer email program set up to use POP. Note that the ACCC strongly recommends that everyone uses IMAP rather than POP, and even if you do use POP, sometimes you'll have to use an email program with IMAP to fix POP quota problems.

Note on mail folders and mailboxes: Some email programs and tools talk about "mail folders" and others talk about "email mailboxes" -- they are exactly the same thing. Thunderbird uses Folders, but folders are also the things that are used to hold groups of mailboxes, so we will use mailboxes mainly.

For more information about using Thunderbird, Eudora, or other email programs, see the ACCC Email Web home page.

• Is this the right page for you?
• How to remove messages from your Inbox
• Converting to IMAP -- when you ought to do it
• --Using IMAP is easier than you might think
• --Why you might want to use WebMail

This Web page explains how to fix Inbox quota problems on icarus or tigger email accounts if you use Thunderbird or another personal computer email program with POP. When you use only POP, the only mailbox that you have on the server is your Inbox (and spam mailbox, but that is emptied automatically), so this page also explains how to fix email quota problems on mailserv.

In theory, it's not easy to get into quota problems when you use POP; you download all of your email every time that you check your mail. But it is possible to get your Inbox messed up, particularly if you use POP's Leave Mail on Server (LMOS, which the ACCC strongly recommends against). In that case, you can try following the instructions in this page, but if your Inbox is not empty after you download all the messages from it, then you need to clean things up using an email program set up to use IMAP -- Eudora with IMAP for icarus or tigger, Eudora with IMAP for mailserv, WebMail for icarus or tigger, or WebMail for mailserv. You should consider switching to use IMAP instead of POP.

The ACCC strongly recommends that everyone uses IMAP rather than POP.

Don't know whether you use POP? The Email Account Diagnostics Tool Web Page will tell you whether you used POP or IMAP most recently. That's not necessarily the whole story, since it will say IMAP if you've most recently used WebMail or pine, even if your usual email program is set up to use POP.

When you use only POP, you have only one mailbox on the server -- your Inbox. (Well, there is your spam mailbox also, but the ACCC takes care of deleting older messages in it.)

Normally (if you don't have Leave Mail on Server set, that is), POP automatically downloads all the email in your Inbox each time you check your email. Thus, if you use POP properly and you receive a quota warning message, your problem might either be that you've received one or two new email messages with large attachments, or it might be might be that you have a lot of new messages in a short period of time. (Unless you've been on vacation, having one or a few large attachments is much more likely to be the case of your problem than just having too much email.)

1. If you don't have antivirus software with real time file protection running, download and install Symantec AntiVirus and make sure it's running and scanning all types of files.
   
   
2. Make sure you do not have Leave Mail on Server turned on. For Thunderbird, that means you select: Tools -> Account Settings -> Server Settings and uncheck Leave messages on server then click OK.
   
   
3. Check your email. In Thunderbird, click the Get Mail icon -- with an envelope above a wooden in box with an arrow pointing down. This should download everything that you have in your Inbox on the server and move it to your local In mailbox (the Inbox for the account by default in Thunderbird).
   
   
4. Be sure to check your your quota again when you're finished to make sure you're really back under your quota.This is important because you may have used WebMail or pine or a personal computer email program set up to use IMAP and have forgotten that you did so. If you have, Eudora might think that your Inbox mailbox on the server is empty when you actually have hundreds of messages in it.
   
   
5. If your quota checks out, you're finished.
   
   
6. If the quota checker says you still have have a substantial amount email (more than you could have received in the time since you last downloaded your email) in your Inbox on the server,
   1. Then use WebMail to clean up your Inbox; WebMail will be able to see all your email. See How to fix icarus or tigger Inbox quota problems with WebMail or How to fix mailserv quota problems with WebMail for instructions.
   2. And please consider converting all your email programs -- Eudora or Outlook or Netscape or whatever -- on every machine you use to read your email to use IMAP. (WebMail and pine already use IMAP.) See Converting to IMAP -- when you ought to do it below for more information and links to ACCC Web pages with conversion instructions.

You should convert Eudora to use IMAP if you do any of the following:

1. If you use POP from multiple machines, particularly if you use POP with Leave Mail On Server (LMOS), which we strongly discourage.
2. If you use Eudora or another personal computer email program with POP along with WebMail or with pine or with other email program set up to use IMAP. ("Along with" doesn't necessarily mean you use the other email program on any regular basis -- just once is enough to mess things up for you.) The section titled "What if the short answers don't work?" in Managing Your icarus Account, Managing Your mailserv Account, and Managing Your tigger Account explains how to tell whether you have used POP with IMAP.
3. If you use WebMail, or if you ever want to use WebMail. (See Why you might want to use WebMail.) If you use WebMail, you will have additional mailboxes on the server; you will not be able to see them with Eudora if you use POP, but you will be able to see and use them if you use IMAP.

If you use POP with LMOS or mix using POP with using IMAP, then soon or later your Inbox is going to get messed up. Either you won't be able to access the email that you have in your Inbox at all or POP is going to lose track of what you have deleted from your Inbox and what you haven't, and you'll begin accumulating email messages in your Inbox that POP doesn't know about. These email messages won't ever be downloaded because POP doesn't know about them. They will eventually begin to cause problems for you, including going over your quota. And if you use WebMail, then you will have mailboxes on the server other than your Inbox, which you will not be able to access with POP. On mailserv, these WebMail mailboxes can and often do cause quota problems.

If any of these describe your email use, you should convert all your email programs -- Eudora or Outlook or Netscape or whatever -- on every machine you use to read your email, to use IMAP. (WebMail and pine already use IMAP.)

1. For complete, step-by-step instructions on how to convert Eudora to using IMAP, see Configuring Eudora for Windows for IMAP or Eudora for the Macintosh.
   
   
2. The ACCC doesn't support doing email with Outlook or Netscape or any other other personal computer (Windows or Mac) email program, but the Eudora IMAP configuration instructions include all the information you need to configure any email program that supports IMAP (and they pretty much all do now) to use IMAP. (I've used the info in those Web pages to set up both Outlook and Netscape.)

After you convert to IMAP, follow the instructions above on How to remove messages from your Inbox to clean up your Inbox and other IMAP mailboxes.

While IMAP has other features that you might want to look into, you can use Eudora with IMAP in almost exactly the same way as you use Eudora with POP, and it has the advantage to being compatible with WebMail.

But using Eudora with IMAP is different.

There's a difference in how you delete messages (Windows).

Deleting messages when using IMAP usually doesn't involve a Trash mailbox like it does with POP. (At least it doesn't on Windows. Eudora for Macs does involve a Trash mailbox and, for Macs, this difference is actually rather minor.)

You'll most likely notice this one right away, because the messages that you've deleted from your Inbox -- or any other IMAP mailbox that lives on the server -- will stay listed in index of the IMAP mailbox you're deleting them from.

There's a difference in how you use your Inbox (Windows and Mac).

This difference you probably won't notice, and could cause you quota problems. When you convert to using IMAP you have to get into the habit of moving email messages that you want to keep indefinitely into local mailboxes and deleting them from your Inbox.

When you use Eudora or another personal computer email program with POP, all your new incoming email is downloaded to your personal computer and put in a local mailbox that lives on your personal computer, your In mailbox in Eudora, and it is deleted immediately from the server. (Unless you use Leave Mail on Server, that is, which we strongly discourage.) Thus the only email that's in your Inbox on the server -- or that's on the server at all -- at any particular time should be whatever new incoming email you've received since the last time you downloaded your email. And the mail in your In mailbox on your personal computer doesn't take up space in your server email quotas. So when you use POP you can let your In mailbox (which is on your own computer) get as big as you can stand and never have any server quota problems, because none of the mail in it is on the server.

When you use Eudora or anther personal computer email program with IMAP, however, the mail in your Inbox mailbox stays in your Inbox mailbox -- on the server -- taking up your email quota, even after you read it. And it will stay on the server, taking up space in your email quota, until you delete it from your Inbox, at which point it is also deleted from your Inbox mailbox on your personal computer. So you can't let your Inbox -- or any other mailboxes on the server, for that matter -- get too big when you're using IMAP. And you shouldn't leave any messages that you want to keep indefinitely in your Inbox mailbox.

But you can make Eudora with IMAP work functionally the same as Eudora with POP in this instance, if you want to. Just move the messages that are in your Inbox and that you want to keep to your In mailbox, which is a local mailbox living on your personal computer, not an IMAP mailbox on the server. (Don't forget to delete the messages from the Inbox after you move them.)

Check out the ACCC's Web documentation on Eudora for more Information.

The ACCC's Web documentation on Eudora explains the differences between Eudora with POP and Eudora with IMAP and, in particular, how to delete messages when using IMAP.

If you use Eudora for Windows:

See How to use Eudora with IMAP in Configuring Eudora for Windows for IMAP.

If you use Eudora for Macs:

See If You're Using IMAP in Eudora for the Macintosh. See also Qualcomm's IMAP FAQ for Macintosh; there's a link to it in the "If You're Using IMAP" section of the Mac Eudora Web page.

https://webmail.uic.edu

The section above Using IMAP is easier than you might think has links to ACCC documentation that explains how to convert from POP to IMAP.