Changing Thunderbird 3.1 email server from IMAP to POP3

by

Installing and configuring Thunderbird 3.1 for the first time, I discovered it would automatically create an IMAP email account, rather than POP3. In Thunderbird’s Account Settings / Server settings, there is no option to change from IMAP to POP3.

The Solution

  1. If you already have an incorrect IMAP account, you need to delete it!
  2. Begin to create a new email account, either (a) On the Thunderbird starting page, click “Create a new account” (b) Go to File | New | Mail account
  3. In the first Mail Account Setup window, enter your name and email address, and if you have it, your password. Click Continue
  4. On the second Mail Account Setup window, Thunderbird will try to automatically detect your incoming and outgoing server details.
  5. My problem was that if you click the Stop button, or click Manual Setup, there was no way to change the IMAP server.
  6. The solution, is to wait until email server detection has completed, and then the Stop button changes to an Edit button. Click Edit.
  7. Now you can specify that you want to use the POP server.