If you want to uninstall the Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail program, what happens to the emails contained in the program? This question should of course be asked before uninstalling.
Before uninstalling Thunderbird, two points should be noted.
Point 1: Emails in local folders
If there are e-mails in one of the folders created under “Local Folders”, please save them externally. With Thunderbird, it's relatively easy to save your email. This is done in EML format. If these emails are then saved, they are safe and will not be lost during the uninstallation as they were saved separately.
Point 2: IMAP or POP3
This is a very important point when it comes to the email addresses managed in Thunderbird. If you manage multiple email addresses in Thunderbird, check for each individual email address.
If access via IMAP was used for an email address, don't worry. If Thunderbird is then uninstalled, the e-mails from the respective e-mail address remain with the e-mail provider and are not lost.
If an email address has been accessed using POP3, please note the following. Check whether the account settings in Thunderbird have saved that the e-mails should remain on the server after they have been retrieved via POP3. Usually the setting is chosen so that the e-mails are deleted from the server of the e-mail provider as soon as the POP3 is accessed. It is therefore generally recommended that if an e-mail address was used in Thunderbird with POP3, then please save all Thunderbird e-mails on the computer. To do this, go to the appropriate folder, mark all e-mails, click with the right mouse button and go to "Save as ...". All you have to do is choose a folder where the emails will be saved. This process must then be carried out for each individual folder, please note this.
This is the English version of this article:
https://dumoxde.blogspot.com/2020/05/thunderbird-deinstallieren-email-sichern.html