Syncing e-mail with computer and smart phone?

[Hulk]

Okay so with the help of this community I'm finally moving into the 21st century phone-wise. As can be seen from my thread asking about smart phones I now have in my possession a Samsung Galaxy S III phone. Thanks to everybody for helping me there. I really like the S3. Now my next dilemma..

I use Thunderbird for e-mail because I like to have all of my contacts and such actually on my computer, I can still work if the internet is down, and thus far it's been pretty easy to move the profile to my laptop simply by copying the folder over.

But now with the phone I'm thinking it would be nice to be able to have my phone and computer in sync with my e-mail.

I would like to stay with Thunderbird because I am familiar with it but am not adverse to moving to something else if that's the right thing to do.

I read a little bit about IMAP which if I'm understanding it correctly is like POP except that it is two way so that all of my folders and messages can be stored on my e-mail server and then all of my accounts could be updated whenever I'm logged on. I have Comcast so I don't even know if it works with this IMAP thing.

So my question is can I use IMAP with Thunderbird and Comcast? And if this will work, what are some good Android e-mail apps for my phone?

If this won't work then what would be my next best options?

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[vshah]

i assume you are using your comcast email address?

unfortunately comcast does not support IMAP on home email accounts. So i assume that Thunderbird is using POP on your computer.
the "Email" app on your phone will support POP as well, however syncing between devices is a bit harder that way since POP does not push information back to the mail server.

if you're willing to make a bit of a leap, you could do this:
Create a gmail account
set gmail to access your comcast email account via POP
set thunderbird to access your gmail account via IMAP
your android phone will natively access your gmail account.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

I would consider moving to something else personally. Using Gmail with it's Android app or one of the Microsoft mail services (outlook.com/live/Hotmail) with Exchange ActiveSync will deliver a vastly superior experience on your phone as well as ensuring all of your contacts and calendars are kept up to date between your phone and pc.

With either of those options the setup is completely painless and it delivers a perfect experience for your phone, the only downside is moving to a new mail service.

 

[Dulanic]

Having a phone made me quickly abandon all POP email accounts I highly recommend migrating to GMail and have Gmail pull in your comcast emails via POP.

 

[dagamer34]

Ditch POP and stop using your ISP for e-mail. Switch to either Outlook.com, Gmail, or any other provider that gives you free IMAP access. Import your POP mail into those services.

 

[Hulk]

Okay so I believe I basically have three choices.

1. Create a gmail account and have Comcast access this account via POP, and Thunderbird access gmail via IMAP. If I'm understanding this then when I delete an e-mail, or send one via Thunderbird, then it will "access" gmail and the make same changes to that account, which will also send/receive the e-mail through the Comcast server. gmail acts kind of as a go-between Comcast and Thunderbird. Interesting. And of course gmail would work natively with the phone.
If I make changes to the gmail from the phone will these changes also happen with Thunderbird next time I log on?

2. Complete switch to gmail. This requires a bit more work but is probably the most "fail safe" option. I used to use Outlook Express so going to Outlook is definitely a possibility.

3. Ditch POP all together. Problem with that is the hassle of losing my Comcast e-mail name.


I have to think about this but I'm thinking about giving option #1 a try. If it's too clunky or unreliable I can easily move to option #2 or #3.

Again, thanks.

 

[Dulanic]

I did option 2 myself. What I did was slowly move all my things over as I saw emails coming in. It took time to get everything moved over but I am just about done and no regrets. GMail will still pull in your old account during the move over so I didn't lose anything. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought and it cleared up a lot of the spam I got as I only changed my email on sites I wanted to get emails from.

 

[Hulk]

I did option 2 myself. What I did was slowly move all my things over as I saw emails coming in. It took time to get everything moved over but I am just about done and no regrets. GMail will still pull in your old account during the move over so I didn't lose anything. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought and it cleared up a lot of the spam I got as I only changed my email on sites I wanted to get emails from.

What is the easiest way to move all of my current Thunderbird folders to gmail?

 

[Dulanic]

What is the easiest way to move all of my current Thunderbird folders to gmail?

http://waltervos.com/news/how-to-transfer-all-your-e-mail-to-gmail-even-if-it’s-in-folders/