@UncleStu
I didn’t want to restore ancient backups until I stabilized my eM C setup, so I tried to change from IMAP to POP, for more control.
When changing my eM C settings several fields that gmail requires are missing.
If you want to change from a Gmail IMAP account to Gmail POP account in eM Client, “you don’t change your current IMAP account settings”
You first need to “manually add your same Gmail address as a POP account” via “Add account / Mail / Other” and follow the manual wizard, which will authenticate via an OAuth token and ask you to give eM Client access to your Gmail account and then will automatically put in the correct Gmail POP and SMTP settings.
Note: At the end of the POP account wizard (before you click finish) make sure to choose if you want your POP account mail in a separate Account folder or in Local folders.
You should then see two accounts with your same Gmail address. 1 x IMAP & 1 x POP
The POP account settings should be.
Incoming Server pop.gmail.com
Port 995
Security Policy "Use TLS on Special Port”
Outgoing Server smtp.gmail.com
Outgoing Server Port 587
Security Policy "Use STARTTLS (Always)
Once you have your Gmail POP account setup, then “drag / move all your existing Gmail IMAP account mail and any custom mail labels (folders) into your POP account”.
Next once you are confident all your existing Gmail IMAP account emails are all in your POP account then remove your Gmail IMAP account.
Note: After you move your Gmail IMAP account mail and mail folders to your Gmail POP account, eM Client will then start synching. To see when that’s completed click the dropdown on the right of Refresh and click “Show Operations”. It can take time depending on the size of your online mailbox.
Lastly be aware that if you change to POP, “only your Inbox will synchronise” to eM Client and “no other folders will sync to any other device”.
So I would personally recommend “to stick with your IMAP account” and “try restoring your backups in offline mode” to try and restore your missing emails. As I said “if your email was fully cached locally” then you can restore it back.
Here is a post I wrote on how to restore missing email from an eM Client backup.
(How to do a partial restore from a backup)
1). If you have been making regular eM Client backups and have an eM Client backup zip file in your default “Documents / eM Client” folder or other backup location with the messages you need, then “Close eM Client” and then go to the following eM Client Pc or Mac database folder location and rename the folder to eg: eM Client-Current.
(Hidden database folder Windows)
C:\Users%username%\AppData\Roaming\eM Client
(Hidden database folder Mac)
/Users/User Name/Library/Application Support/eM Client
2). Then “disconnect from the Internet” and then open eM Client and “skip the setup account wizard”. Then restore your eM Client backup.zip file with the missing messages in it via “Menu / File / Restore”.
3). Next you need to export your messages you need to (.eml) files either via using “Menu / File / Export” or by Creating a folder on your desktop called eg: eM Client-Old , and then dragging / moving any messages and/or any custom message folders you do want to the eM Client-Old desktop folder.
4). Then once you have all the messages out of eM Client, then close eM Client and “delete the new eM Client hidden database folder”. Then rename your original eM Client-Current database folder back to eM Client. Then reopen eM Client.
5). Next import your missing messages that you either exported / saved via “Menu / File / Import”, or by dragging the messages & message folders back from the eM Client-Old desktop folder into eM Client. Then lastly reconnect to the Internet.
