IMAP questions

I have a couple of questions regarding IMAP in general, and also how eM Client works with it.

So I’m considering moving from a POP setup to an IMAP setup, which I presume would mean starting with a new empty local mail database, then copying past mails back to this store, then eM Client would upload these “new” (read: copied) messages back to the server. Is that right?

Secondly, I tend to use a lot of message rules to move mail to subfolders, mainly with incoming mail, as well as moving emails around as I see fit, should I decide to have a tidy. With an IMAP setup, would eM Client be smart enough to tell the server to move mails on the server, or does it have to delete on the server, then re-upload the mail, taking lots of time and becoming more of a burden than a benefit?

FYI I have about 4 mail accounts, each with anything from 200MB to 500MB of mail in each one.

Cheers,
Dave

No, it won’t create a new empty database. All your data are saved in one database folder.
You can simply create the same account using IMAP and copy all the messages to the newly created account. It will upload them on the server.

When you move a message on IMAP, it creates a copy on the server and deletes the original message.

Thanks George.

Yeah, the main thrust of my question was whether the process was smart enough to move messages on the server.

Cheers,
Dave

I also am wondering about the inner workings of an IMAP system after having problems moving between two eM Client email systems.

Can anyone confirm that it is a feature of an IMAP system that if I copy old emails (which are not already on my IMAP server) into my eM Client inbox then they will be automatically uploaded to the server ?

And that there is no way to stop this happening ?

Can anyone confirm that it is a feature of an IMAP system that if I copy old emails (which are not already on my IMAP server) into my eM Client inbox then they will be automatically uploaded to the server ?

Yes , IMAP uses  2-way sync  and I use this e.g. to transfer mail from one provider to another.

To prevent this , copy the mail to Inbox of Local Folders which doesn’t sync with the server

Thanks for your reply.  I asked the question because when I copied old emails into a new eM Client inbox  (after inadvertently setting up an IMAP system rather than a POP system) the old emails were uploaded to my IMAP server.  I used the inbox listed in eM Client under the heading of my email address.  I now realise that, as you say, in an IMAP system the inbox under the Local Folder setting is not uploaded back to the server? But anything in the email address headed inbox would be uploaded to the server. 

I asked this same question to customer support who did not realise that the sync in an IMPA system is a 2-way sync so they could not tell me why 26,000 emails I had loaded into my inbox were being uploaded to the server !

This was what I was told by support :
“All servers have the right to rewrite the data in the client app but the app can’t upload the data that were deleted from the server in the past.”

This is manifestly no true - and is something that people need to know about.