Thunderbird Community Forum

I had difficulty getting my thunderbird email to open. Then, when it did open, it uploaded all emails in duplicate. I now have a very full inbox in both my accounts. How can I get thunderbird to remove the duplicates? It would take forever to do this manually.

After I open my Thunderbird email and use it for 15 to 20 minutes it freezes. I need to close it and I get a message Thunderbird is not responding. I then need to close the program using Microsoft to close the program.

Hi, I have been running low on hard disk space due to the bloated Windows 11. I have been trying to clean up Thunderbird by deleting a bunch of saved emails and compacting, but the size of my profile folder is still about 3.5 GB. I looked at all of the subfolders under my profile and found a bunch of what I think is dead storage.

Under the MAIL folder there are 4 folders for what looks like my current Local Folders and 3 older local folders. Under the IMAPMAIL folder there are 4 folders for what looks like my 2 current email addresses and 2 older unused email addresses.

I looked under the account settings for the Local Folders and the 2 email addresses and have identified the 3 out of the 8 folders that are still being used.

So my question is, is it safe to just delete these apparently unused folders?

Windooze 11. TBird 152.0 installed on June 20th. Now it seems like TBird is not displaying HTML emails properly. They are displayed but not at the beginning. The first line is sometimes just the bottom half of a sentence in the email (if that makes sense). I can't scroll back to the beginning. If I go to outlook and display the same email it displays fine.

Did something change in 152.0 to cause this?

Thanks, Ed Mazurek

I am unable to access my mails on Greenby with Thunderbird and I suspect the password is incorrect. I can read my mails on the Greenby server and know the necessary password but cannot work out how to enter this into Thunderbird! As I am no expert, a simple guide would be most appreciated! Thanks in advance. Roy

I used to have Thunderbird on this laptop and was using Microsoft Office 365. I have since stopped using it from GoDaddy. I uninstalled the old Thunderbird and reinstalled a new version. I am trying to enter the new server settings but I keep getting the old Office 365 settings showing up. How do I get rid of that and find the new settings page to enter the new settings?

All my old email accounts are showing up and I only want to add 2 to the new Thunderbird. I thought uninstalling would delete all the old stuff. Please help.

Quick Filter does not return correct results in Unified Inbox (Thunderbird 140.12.0 ESR)

I'm using Thunderbird **140.12.0 ESR (aarch64)** and believe I've found an issue with the Quick Filter when searching the **Unified Inbox**.

• • Steps to reproduce:**

1. Open the **Unified Inbox**. 2. Open the Quick Filter bar. 3. Enter a search term (e.g. "maddy").

• • Observed behaviour in the Unified Inbox:**

• With no "Filter messages by" options selected, entering a search term does not filter the message list.
• Selecting **Sender**, **Recipients** and **Subject** still does not return the expected email.
• Selecting **Body** changes the results after a delay, but the expected email is still **not** returned.

If I open the **actual Inbox** containing that same email and repeat the search:

• The expected email is found using **Sender**, **Recipients** and **Subject**.
• When **Body** is selected, the search takes longer and eventually returns additional matching messages, including the expected email.

This behaviour is reproducible with multiple search terms and suggests that the Quick Filter does not search the **Unified Inbox (virtual folder)** correctly, even though the same search works in the underlying physical folder.

Could you please confirm whether this is a known issue or a bug?

First, I have very limited understanding of software. I need very simple explanations.

Here's my issue. I use Thunderbird on my desktop computer. I have used the Import/Export > Options > Backup Scheduling function to backup my Thunderbird email to my USB/flash drive. I have labelled the backup folder on my flash drive "Thunderbird email backup." That folder contains numerous subfolders including: 1) calendar-data 2) chrome_debugger_profile 3) crashes 4) datareporting 5) extensions 6) ExternalMailFolders 7) Mail 8) minidumps 9) saved-telemetry-pings 10) scheduled-notifications 11) settings 12) shader-cache 13) storage.

Again, these are the subfolders created/named by the Thunderbird Import/Export backup. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THESE FOLDERS MEAN.

Here's what I want - it's actually very simple. I want to be able to see (read) my backed up email on my flash drive without using the Thunderbird installed on my computer. I want complete interaction with the backed up email without my desktop Thunderbird - or my online email account - being involved at all.

My understanding is that Thunderbird Portable is supposed to be able to allow me to do that. I downloaded Thunderbird Portable (from https://portableapps.com) to my flash drive but when I tried to access it the first thing it did was try to force me to put in my online account (POP?) information.

I don't want to do that. I just want to open Thunderbird Portable on the flash drive and have it realize that all of my backed up Thunderbird email information is right there in the same flash drive. I want it to just access and use what's right there.

I was really hoping that Thunderbird Portable would simply ask me where to look - in a very user-friendly way! - and I could tell it to go to my "Thunderbird email backup" folder on my flash drive (WHERE ALL MY THUNDERBIRD INFO IS!) and it would simply do just that and provide me with complete Thunderbird service for the backed up email.

Am I missing something? Can someone give me a VERY SIMPLE walk through to do what I would think should be a very simple thing? Thank you. Chris (6/29/26)

PS - I've read the Mozilla Support ARTICLE: Thunderbird Portable (Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition) and other portable apps as alternatives (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1285834) and it alludes in general terms to exactly what I want to do but it does not give any step-wise instructions.

Hi, When i start the TB-client on a win10 desctop there will be an Authentication error connecting to server imap.gmail.com.

from Google: 400. An error has occurred, The server cannot process the request because its format is incorrect. The request should not be made again. Unfortunately, we don't know more than that!

It still seems like the email arrives to the gmail account. But it turns out that the email doesn't always arrive via sync. Do you see any problems with the TB and gmail connection?

For the moment I don't know the Thunderbird version, I will be back.

TIA, /Leo

The system was working fine. The next day, when starting Thunderbird (TB, the status line shows logging in to server but loops; no errors or messages, Thunderbird is 'locked out' spinning. I see the normal INBOX page, but logging in never completes. NO CHANGES were made to TB accounts or settings. I have re-installed TB, re-booted, but no change. I cannot check/change any of the accounts or do any further 'debugging' because TB is spinning. The server login is fine because Webmail can be used. Internet connection is fine, because browser works. 1. How can I stop TB from trying to login at start up? 2. What could/would cause this behaviour?

Any suggestions much appreciated.

When I send photos from my phone to my imac inbox, same email address, or when a third party sends me a verification code, "get messages" is very slow showing results. Sometimes minutes, so I have to go through several verification attempts. The primary email account is gmail. My ISP is comcast.net. I don't know if this matters, because slow Get Messages is recent. It used to work very well

When I replaced Outlook with Thunderbird, it was brilliant. It was so good, I chose to donate! Now it's changed. I was trying to find out why a forwarded email changed the body of the message to a HTML attachment. I stupidly followed a wrong AI help process and changed something I can't remember. Now all of my emails only show hyperlinks and not the pictures these hyperlinks point to. I would like the pictures back and the option to download these if these are safe in new emails. I've seached everywhere I thought I went but I can't find the setting that does this. Please help if you can.

I got an eMail notification about an upcoming update for Thunderbird snap/flatpak configs, but I don't see any entry for Thunderbird in my "~/.var/app/" directory. There is an entry for Firefox, but nothing for Thunderbird. Yet Thunderbird still updates regularly and successfully.

What should I do, in order to conform to the eMail notification instructions?

Running the command "snap info thunderbird" returns the following --

name: thunderbird summary: Mozilla Thunderbird email application publisher: Canonical✓ store-url: https://snapcraft.io/thunderbird contact: https://www.thunderbird.net/contact/ license: unset description: |

 **ANNOUNCEMENT:** The snap channels are changing. Action is required by July 21, 2026
 to stay on ESR.
 Read more about this change:
 https://support.mozilla.org/kb/channel-choices-thunderbird-snap-and-flatpak
 
 Thunderbird is a free email application that’s easy to set up and customize - and
 it’s loaded with great features!

commands:

 - thunderbird

snap-id: k1Ml1O9GzSO2QftV0ZlWSbUfQ78nN460 tracking: latest/stable refresh-date: 12 days ago, at 06:38 CST channels:

 latest/stable:     140.12.0esr-1 2026-06-16 (1155) 221MB -
 latest/candidate:  140.12.1esr-1 2026-06-29 (1170) 221MB -
 latest/beta:       ↑                                     
 latest/edge:       ↑                                     
 monthly/stable:    151.0-1       2026-05-20 (1120) 226MB -
 monthly/candidate: 151.0-1       2026-06-05 (1146) 226MB -
 monthly/beta:      153.0b4-2     2026-06-30 (1173) 239MB -
 monthly/edge:      ↑                                     
 esr/stable:        140.12.0esr-1 2026-06-16 (1155) 221MB -
 esr/candidate:     140.12.1esr-1 2026-06-29 (1170) 221MB -
 esr/beta:          ↑                                     
 esr/edge:          ↑                                     

installed: 140.12.0esr-1 (1155) 221MB -

I don't use Archives or Templates. There is no folder on my servers that correspond to these and they are not subscribed in my IMAP settings.

They don't appear in the per-account view. But they somehow appear in the unified folder view.

I am not able to figure out how to make them disappear.

Help.

PRELUDE: I have several email accounts. All accounts display properly, except one. Yes, this is similar to my question about bottom of the far left [of emails] list of emails - but this is different.

On the far left of Thunderbird is a list of all my email accounts with "Inbox" etcetera. Each email account shows it's Inbox/Sent/Deleted/ except for 1 account. The problem email account only shows it's Title and Inbox northing else. Yes, I tested it and sent emails to it, and used the problem email account to send, create a draft, and they don't show..

The image explains it.

Thanks for reading this ~r

My school email's storage and emails will expire end of today (June 30th, 11:59 PM EST). I accidentally thought the account would just be frozen at that time, but realized they would be deleting the account all together for universities alumni.

When I downloaded Thunderbird to transfer my emails, I'm logging in, but I'm getting prompted to log in to Microsoft rather than Gmail for some reason. The email should be Google Workspace. I'd love to know what's going on as I'm not sure and my school's IT support said it's a problem with Thunderbird as it should be gmail for me.

Anyone know of any fixes or suggestions?

GmailをIMAPで使用。 19000件ほどの「すべてのメール」を、17000件ほど「ローカルにアーカイブ」したところ、他のPCで見られなくなった。 IMAPでは削除扱いだろうが、Gmailでは自動削除オフ&アーカイブするという処理がされているはず。 実際Gmail上ではすべてのメールに残っているし、iPadの Gmailアプリでもすべて見ることができる。

復旧する方法はないか。ローカルにアーカイブしたメールは残っているものもあるが、残っていないものも一部ある。

以下、AIの回答

② 今回の問題の本体

あなたの現象の本質はこれです：

❗ Gmail IMAPの「分割レスポンス」＋クライアントの「完了判定」

⸻

Gmail側

• All Mailを一括で返さない
• チャンク（分割）で返す
• 順序は保証されない

⸻