Best way to convert from IMAP to POP3?

Question

At work, I connect to a corporate Exchange server via IMAP and Thunderbird 3. Over the course of a year or so, I've created quite a few folders on the server and have a lot of mail stored there. I'm hitting the storage limit of my mail account and want to convert to pulling mail down to my local box (running Linux) via POP3. I know that polling mail will only get mail in INBOX, but I'm wondering if there are solutions out there that could be used to pull mail from the other folders as well, or am I doomed to moving mail into the inbox manually and polling over and over again?

Solution

I've not used Thunderbird but I assume similar functions (multiple accounts, local folders) are available to you.

This is how I would do it, based on Outlook:

1. Set up the POP3 account alongside the IMAP account

2. Set up an empty folder structure in your local folders (equivalent of Outlook's PST file)

3. Drag and drop from the IMAP folders to the local folders

Whilst it is not a "one click" solution it will save you from moving all to the inbox and downloading via POP.

Comments

[MC9000]

Only problem with this answer is it is impossible to do if you no longer have access to your IMAP account (ugh!).

[Shevek]

If you don't have access to the IMAP account then surely the question itself does not apply!