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Open next message after delete

  • 7 cavab
  • 3 have this problem
  • 15 views
  • Last reply by Matt

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I am using Gmail on IMAP on Thurnderbird. IF I click a message it opens in a new window. While I am done reading it, I press "Delete" button on keyboard, and the message is marked as "deleted" until I do "compact" action to purge the mailbox.... so far, so cool!!!!!

But, when I press "Delete" I hope the next message in the list appears in the same email window!!! This does not happen automatically!!! I have to press the shortcut key "F" to get to the next message to appear in the same reading window! This is counter-intuitive -- you have to make the next message appear automatically in the same reading window after the current message is "marked as deleted"... can you help? Thanks.

I am using Gmail on IMAP on Thurnderbird. IF I click a message it opens in a new window. While I am done reading it, I press "Delete" button on keyboard, and the message is marked as "deleted" until I do "compact" action to purge the mailbox.... so far, so cool!!!!! But, when I press "Delete" I hope the next message in the list appears in the same email window!!! This does not happen automatically!!! I have to press the shortcut key "F" to get to the next message to appear in the same reading window! This is counter-intuitive -- you have to make the next message appear automatically in the same reading window after the current message is "marked as deleted"... can you help? Thanks.

All Replies (7)

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I think we need more info, I checked on my gmail IMAP account and it worked as you would like it to

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Gnospen said

I think we need more info, I checked on my gmail IMAP account and it worked as you would like it to


I am reading the email on the open window, and I press "delete" on my keyboard. Nothing happens to the open window displaying the email. I am not talking about deleting an email from the emails list.

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I did just that, open message in new window, deleted with del-key on my keyboard, message deleted and next message shows up in the open window.

Could you try to run it without add-ons? See under help

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Gnospen said

I did just that, open message in new window, deleted with del-key on my keyboard, message deleted and next message shows up in the open window. Could you try to run it without add-ons? See under help


No it does not help. I turned off all add-ons. I restarted Thunderbird in Safe Mode with all add-ons disabled. Still, after deleting a message in the open window, nothing happens. I believe my Google-app account Gmail is on IMAP protocol. I do not use POP. If I used POP3, the behaviour might be different.

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I missed that you were using gmail Repeated the test in gmail and got the same result as you. I had "when I delete a message" set to just mark it as deleted. I subscribed to Gmail/trash and set "when...." to move deleted to that folder. And now it worked.

Edit "When....." is under Account settings / server settings Subscribe you find by right clicking on your account

Modified by Gnospen

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Gnospen said

I missed that you were using gmail Repeated the test in gmail and got the same result as you. I had "when I delete a message" set to just mark it as deleted. I subscribed to Gmail/trash and set "when...." to move deleted to that folder. And now it worked. Edit "When....." is under Account settings / server settings Subscribe you find by right clicking on your account


Thanks a lot !!! this does help... one last minor glitch, "when I delete a message" set to move to

[Gmail]/trash

or any other folder/label.


But when you go to the label [Gmail]/trash you can't find the deleted/archived messages there. It looks like the messages were archived correctly though .

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Right click the account in the folder pane, select settings. In server settings for the account select advanced \insert [Gmail] in the imap server directory.

allow the folder pane to re alight itself following that change the {gmail] and sub folder will be gone.

Then in account settings copies and folder set your destination folders as required.