Thank you for the information. I am not familiar with Thunderbird or POP. Is it difficult to set up the way you have it?
No.
Thunderbird I believe still offers a Wizard.
It begins by when you go to create an account for the first time.
It asks if you want to use an existing “account”, actually meaning an existing Email address. You give it your Hotmail or whatever Email address. It looks on the Internet for the right settings for your specific Email provider. At some point it will ask for a password when it goes to check out access to your Email, and you give it the password you are using with your web based Email provider.
The only sticking point I know of is if, hopefully, it asks if you want the account set up as POP or IMAP. I am afraid if it does not ask you it will default to IMAP.
If your present account is an Outlook account, and it is an IMAP account, there may be problems. Outlook does not have/like converting existing Email data from an IMAP account to a POP account. MS does not even have outook conevrsion tools to/from other client server Email systems. Outlook uses a proprietory MS database system while many other Email systems either use the same or similar databases and offer conversion tools from and to each other.
However, that - conversion of existing Email data - may not be an issue for someone who only has “current” Email in an Inbox and does not have folders and folders of many other Emails (like I would) of Emails that have been saved for future refenerence/research/reading.
If all you wanted was just stuff sitting in a Hotmail inbox, then once your POP account was set up in a 3rd party client Email system like Thunderbird is that those Emails would be grabbed the 1st time you hit the “Get Messages” button. Now then, in that vein, when most web based Email systems respond to 3rd party Email applications pulling down Emails they usually move the Emails so taken to their “Junk” (or similar folder) in their web app, and leave them there for a set number of days before deleting them.
If you ever need help with and actual Email change, send me a Freeper private message and we’ll hook up in some way so that I can help you in real time (”pro bono my fellow Freeper LOL).