Migration Questions: Going from POP3 to IMAP concern

[Bullfrog20251]

Hello,

I currently access my verizon.net email from 3 different devices via third-party message applications: PC with Outlook, iPhone & iPad with the Apple mail app. Verizon used the POP3 protocol which downloads the emails from the server to your device.  In order to synchronize across these devices, I chose the option to "Leave the message on the server unless deleted" for all three devices. For the  Apple devices, the emails remained in the Inbox whereas the PC was used as an archive for the older messages which are sorted in appropriate folder/categories in OutLook.  The main shortcoming of this process is that the "read" status would not be reflected across the devices leading to confusion about what was "new".

When I migrate to AOL, I would like to simplify this synchronization across devices by using the IMAP protocol (plus, I imagine there will come a time when POP3 support is discontinued).  I looked at the steps to do it and it seems simple enough but the big WARNING statement about going from POP3 to IMAP has me concerned. The warning is that, with the default POP3 settings, the emails were removed from the server when downloading them on your devices and that any emails previously saved on your device WILL NOT transfer.  I assume, considering how I set up my POP3 devices, this is not a problem. For one, the emails are still on the servers so they will be transferred to AOL during the migration. Also, each device already has already downloaded a copy of the messages.   Am I right in that assumption? 

I assume I need to delete the POP3 Verizon account on the mail application on each device before I add the AOL IMAP account, right?  Deleting the account doesn't delete the emails on the device, I assume...  

Also, will I see duplicates of the emails (e.g., in Outlook)  when I first access the AOL server via IMAP after the migration (the emails already downloaded from Verizon and the copy that is now on AOL)? 

I guess the easiest (safest) answer may be to just use the POP3 protocol with AOL (although I wonder if I will still have the duplicate messages problem..).

Any insight into my concerns would be appreciated..

Thanks- 

[tns2]

See https://help.aol.com/articles/verizon-move-to-aol-mail-setting-up-your-new-aol-account-in-a-third-pa...

Personally I hope they NEVER drop POP3 support.  Several good reasons to use POP over IMAP.  E.g no space issue on servers and email available when lose or close an account.