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Change From IMAP to POP3 in MS Outlook

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Switching from IMAP to POP3 is relatively easy. The basic process is…

Add your POP account.
Transfer your mail folders.
Optionally; Export and import your message rules.
Remove your current IMAP account.

Here are the details . . .

STEP 1:

Add the new POP account

Adding your POP account can be done via the Account Settings dialog;

Outlook 2007
Tools / Account Settings… / button: New…
Outlook 2010, Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2016
File / section Info / Account Settings / Account Settings… / New…
Outlook as part of Office 365
The new setup wizard doesn’t allow you to add the same account twice. You can still do so however when you use the Mail applet.
1. File-> section Info-> Account Settings-> Manage Profiles OR
  from Control Panel, click Mail.
2. Make sure Outlook is closed.
3. In the dialog that opens choose: Email Accounts… button.
4. On the Email tab, press the New… button.

Use the option to “Manually configure server settings or additional server types”.

When setting up the POP account manually, make sure you have the server configuration details at hand. Account settings can be found below…

TIPS:

On the page that asks for server names, make sure the Account Type drop down is set to POP3.
When entering your user name, be sure to enter the whole email address, not just the part to the left of the @ sign.
Configure the account to leave 30 or 60 days of messages on the server when you’re entering the settings.

STEP 2:

Move mail folders and messages to your new account

After adding your new POP account, you’ll notice that all the emails that are in the Inbox folder of your IMAP account get downloaded. Your Sent Items as well as any additional folders you may have created will not be downloaded because POP only sees the Inbox folder on the server.

To transfer your other messages, simply select the messages or folders that you want to have in your POP account, right click the selection, and use either the move (recommended) or copy command, or you can use the drag & drop method. If you drag & drop mails or folders via your right mouse button, you’ll get options to either move (recommended) or copy the selected items or to cancel the operation.

Please Note: You cannot move or copy the Inbox or Sent Items folders because these are special folders. To move items in these folders, you’ll need to select the messages inside instead of the folder itself. Click on the first message in the list, then press Control+A on your keyboard to Select All messages in the folder. Then proceed with the Move or Copy operation as above.

To keep the read/unread/replied/forwarded status of messages that are in your IMAP Inbox, you can first empty the Inbox folder of your POP account (or copy those messages to another temporary folder) to prevent duplicates, then use the Select All / Move (or copy) method.

If you are using Outlook 2013 or Outlook 2016, you must also move any data from the local non-mail folders such as Calendar, Contacts and Tasks before removing your account. To move (don’t copy!) your Calendar items, it is best that you first switch your view to a List View. This way you can see all your Calendar items at once and use the same Move/Copy methods as you did for your email. To change to List View…

Outlook 2002/XP and previous
View-> Current View-> By Category
Outlook 2003
View-> Arrange By-> Current View-> By Category
Outlook 2007
View-> Current View-> All Appointments
Outlook 2010, Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2016
View-> Change View-> List

STEP 3:

Export and import your message rules

(This is optional but recommended if you have rules set for your IMAP account.)

When you have message rules configured for your IMAP account, and you want to use these for your POP account as well, it is recommended to export your rules after moving/copying folders from your IMAP account and before removing it.

For certain configurations, the rules for a specific account could be deleted when you remove the account. When you export them and then later notice that you’ve lost them, you can easily import them again. After importing the rules, you must re-select the folder for any rule with the “move to folder” action.

For step-by-step instructions to backup and restore your message rules see Import/Export message rules.

STEP 4:

Remove your current IMAP account

Once all your data has been moved or copied to your POP mailbox, you can safely remove the IMAP account via the Account Settings dialog, which you also accessed in Step 1.

When you use Outlook 2013 or Outlook 2016, make sure you first set the PST file of the POP account as the default delivery location before attempting to remove the IMAP account. You can set this on the “Data Files” tab, by the location for your POP mailbox (PST file) and then clicking on “Set as Default”.

Changing the default mailbox location from the IMAP account to the POP account will require you to restart Outlook. After the restart, go back to the Account Settings dialog and remove the IMAP account.