Are emails stored in my computer or with my ISP?

Question

I use Netscape 7.1 for my emails, I store received emails there from many clients. Lately they all have disappeared. I have Windows XP Pro. I do not know who to contact about them or if they are stored in my computer somewhere.

I've tried going to C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Local Settings\ApplicationData but do not find an Identities folder as I have seen in previous questions & answers. I even made all folders visible.

Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

Emails are not stored on your computer unless you downloaded them...

They are stored on servers.

Answer 2

That depends upon your mail client settings.

If you are using IMAP, mails are not stored in your machine.

If you are using POP3 and you have configured the client to download the mail and delete it from the server, then mails are stored in your machine only. Otherwise they are stored in the both the places.

Answer 3

that all depends on how your email is setup . It could go either way.  For the most part, email is stored on your ISP servers until you retreive the email and then it's transferred from their server to your local computer.  But you can also set up your email to leave it on the server too.  And if you're in a corporate environ. using exchange server, they may have it set up to keep everything on the server and you just access it directly from the server.

so as I said, it really depends on how your system was set up to start with.