MiloMinderbender - thanks. Would you recommend any particular email client? I have heard of "Thunderbird" but am not otherwise familiar.
In rerum natura - thank you for your comments. Unfortunately the PFC only works if all your emails are saved on your PC. If all your AOL emails are saved-on-AOL then the PFC options are not doable. Hence AOL Tech Help being foxed and confuzzled yesterday
obgraham - seriously? AOL mails migrated to an email client aren't always readable?? Wow.
OK... so assuming I go with an as yet to be chosen email client, when I grab the mails from AOL into it, presumable the mails remain in AOL too? So if I then undertake a quick squizz of what has been imported and do discover problems with readability I should still be able to go back to AOL?
I suppose, another possibility would be to copy all saved-on-AOL to PFC and then back up but PFC still needs an AOL browser... hmmmmm ... the email client route sounds most efficient.
P.S. the main reason I stayed with AOL is I like the brevity of @aol.com!!