Here is how the emails likely got on Weiner's laptop

[TrogL]

Full disclosure: I've been administering email servers since before a lot of you were born.

Back in the day, you read your email by logging into the email server and directly read your mail and decided what to do with it. This was sendmail, smail and friends.

Eventually PC's came along with mail clients that needed to access the server, so two protocols were invented to do it: POP and IMAP. IMAP leaves the mail on the server and the client merely displays it and transmits users' intentions on what to do with it.

Microsoft went with POP, which downloads all the mail to the PC. This means the first time you log on from a specific PC, all your email ends up on that PC whether you like it or not. There's a switch to allow mail to reside on the server.

Hillary's email server used Microsoft Exchange. It has IMAP available but defaults to POP. Microsoft Outlook ships with office and Windows has a rudimentary email client. Both default to POP. This means the perfect storm is all set up.

Even though she claims not to remember doing so, all Huma Abedin would have had to have done was log once into her account and every email would be downloaded to local storage on the laptop, just waiting to be discovered by the FBI.

(I'm assuming Huma's email is hosted on Hillary's server)

[cilla4progress]

1. Thought so!

[madaboutharry]

2. Could it be stored in the computer without a person knowing?

Can it just be sitting there without her having any idea? It sounds like that is the case. And unless a person was a geek they would have no idea.

[herding cats]

5. It would be hanging out there in whatever email client she used to check her mail.

That's how POP mail works.

[NoGoodNamesLeft]

16. If it's IMAP then it is definitely mail they have already seen

If it's POP then it could be new email that they did not see.

If it's her Yahoo account then it should be IMAP and she could have just logged in using the guest or alternative user.

[KeepItReal]

7. If you realize that you can see your emails without being connected to the Internet

Then you'd know there's a local copy on your device - PC, tablet, smartphone, etc.

[TrekLuver]

10. Yes the old work offline situation !!!

[NWCorona]

21. This is the likelihood

I have an old pc server that I use for Plex. One day I was looking around and it had every email up until I changed my password a while back. I just didn't realize because I had the notifications turned off.

[Seahawks]

3. I work for an ISP and I can confirm...

How the FBI couldn't figure this out in 30 seconds is beyond me. Its very basic stuff.

I always recommend people use IMAP for security.

[pnwmom]

12. They could figure it out. They're purposely trying to hurt Hillary.

I might have given them the benefit of the doubt before, but not since they decided to suddenly dump the investigative reports about Bill Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich -- but left out the part showing how they cleared him.

Welcome to DU, Seahawks!

[pnwmom]

8. Huma has 4 accounts, including her Hillary-server-account and a Yahoo account.

I don't remember the others.

But other tech people have basically said the same thing you did: that if she ever borrowed her husband's laptop, and logged onto her email, she effectively turned it into one of her devices.

And I haven't seen her deny ever borrowing it. She just said she rarely used it. Very different.

[NoGoodNamesLeft]

11. I read that it was her personal yahoo.com email

On newer PCs and on Macs you don't have to configure email apps now. You just select Yahoo or Gmail and enter your user name and password and all the mail is synced from the server to the device when you log in. I think it has to be IMAP for that reason. Huma used her personal devices to send mail to her personal address to print some things. That would show the traffic from Hillary's server that was mentioned. She probably left herself logged in on mail on a secondary user on his laptop. I can't imagine Weiner still using a laptop from that many years ago to sext someone more recently. Just doesn't make a lot of sense.

[Jarqui]

13. This article helps explain it similar to the top post with some details

she had four email addresses
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
"and a fourth account used to support the campaign of her now-estranged husband, Anthony Weiner"

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article111904077.html

[BlueStreak]

14. I thought it was reported that the FBI was looking at her cell phone

[PoliticAverse]

26. It was reported earlier that the FBI had seized her cellphone and the emails were there...

but that apparently was an erroneous report and the emails were on Weiner's laptop that Abedin
occassionally used.

[NWCorona]

15. Here's a link to the servers Hillary used.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/09/fbi-clintons-first-e-mail-server-was-a-power-mac-tower/

One of the first thing I do to any device device I get is to turn off the default backup/sync settings.

[okieinpain]

19. i think her husband did it trying to see if she was on to his

peep shows. i think this is why she is surprised that her emails are on that laptop.

[MadLinguist]

23. that seems exactly right

bet she regrets the day she ever met that schmuck

[okieinpain]

24. Hell I regret the day she met him. N/t.

[Hekate]

22. >sigh<. Thanks Trog et al.

[Mike Nelson]

27. There must be many ways...

...for this to happen, all non-sinister. My guess is that one's laptop crashed and s/he checked email on the other's and used some features that linked the two - all reasonable, convenient and logical for a husband and wife. They probably would not even remember or know the emails linked up...

If Mr. Weiner knew he was connecting with a 15-year-old, he's reprehensible - but people should stop looking at sexting adults unless it has some relevance; for example, a "family values" promoter who doesn't practice what he preaches.

[Renew Deal]

29. I read something yesterday that said it was an iPhone backup.

That's a very simple way for it to happen without her realizing.

[DonCoquixote]

30. I am voting Hillary

But it is so sad that the people whop set up her server do not seem to know what many people, both employed in IT, and downsized from IT (thanks to India and China) did not know. The IT insight is great, but one does not need to be an IT expert to note this was a stupid idea. The one silver lining is that the email links forced Debbie Wasserman Schulz out before she crashed yet ANOTHER campaign.