Need help with Thunderbird

[darael]

I am trying to help somebody with Thunderbird. They used to use Windows Live Mail, but recently had to reinstall Windows 10 and as a result WLM is no longer an option, so I installed Thunderbird for them.

The problem is, sometimes they want to read emails from Virgin webmail but Thunderbird has downloaded all the emails since the account was opened. The user has deleted all the emails and emptied the bin, not realising this would also delete them from the server. Not such a massive deal, but we want to stop Thunderbird deleting emails from the server in future.

Ideally I just want Thunderbird to download and leave emails on he server and not delete them.

 

[Steampunk]

Are you using IMAP? What is the setting for "account settings -> server settings -> server settings -> when I delete a message:"

 

[BigBoy]

Why not use the windows 10 Mail app? Far easier if they have been use to WLM

 

[Rainmaker]

The problem is, sometimes they want to read emails from Virgin webmail but Thunderbird has downloaded all the emails since the account was opened.

So far, so working as intended. That's not a 'problem' it's what email clients do? Unless you mean you set it up with POP3 instead of IMAP, and it literally downloaded the mail from the server (again, as the protocol intended) and they can no longer view the messages in webmail through a browser?

The user has deleted all the emails and emptied the bin, not realising this would also delete them from the server.

Not to sound dreadfully unhelpful, but that's obviously just PEBKAC/PICNIC. Oops.

Not such a massive deal, but we want to stop Thunderbird deleting emails from the server in future.
Ideally I just want Thunderbird to download and leave emails on he server and not delete them.

You need to be more specific here. Whether you're using POP3 or IMAP makes a huge difference to the advice you'll receive. TL,DR: Switch to IMAP. It's going to be possible to set up (almost) any mail client to delete local messages but leave a copy on the server, but why? It's difficult to set up precisely because it's arcane, inefficient and unnecessary. Is there a particular reason the user can't just use IMAP and use it as intended - as a mirror copy of the master account? Why would you want to delete stuff locally but not have it deleted on the actual mail account? It doesn't really make sense.

If they insist on doing it this way, the best advice imho is - as I said - switch to IMAP. Configure Thunderbird to move emails to an Archive folder instead of actually deleting them if they're 'deleted' by the local client. Just right click the account name > Server settings > When I delete a message... move it to this folder: Archive. Done.