Thunderbird is not syncing with Gmail (large number of actions at once)
I am moving 32,000 emails from Gmail to Local Folders in Thunderbird. I am doing it by year (each year gets a folder in Local Folders). The moving seems to be ok. Sometimes it seems like it only gets a portion, but that's not the big issue here.
The issue: Moving a full year's worth of emails to local folders works totally fine. IE: 8226 emails moved from All Mail Folder. All looks good. But All Mail in Gmail web still shows 32,000. So I close and reopen thunderbird. The number in All Mail doesn't change. I move another year's worth of emails. No change in Gmail web interface. I close and restart thunderbird. Now it starts re-downloading everything that I moved.
I really think this is a safety mechanism from Google. So if it sees emails deleted in that quantity, it will protect the user by not letting them be deleted and just assume there was an issue on the computer that caused it.
Cool and thanks Gmail, but man...... this sucks. lol. Any suggestions? I would rather not delete from all mail in gmail. I just don't feel like Gmail and Tbird workflows are the same. Because it shows 26,000 emails (All Mail) online but only 20,000 in thunderbird (All Mail).
All Replies (3)
I will suggest you just back up and start all over again. Mass migration of mail rarely works out if you do things like drag and drop in Thunderbird. It is at best slow and of questionable reliability.
My suggestion is go to "Google takeout" (such an American cultural name.) https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout?pli=1
First thing, deselect everything using the button provided as they helpfully select everything Select the mail component files as mbox files and be sure to include all mail data. (this latter is the default).
I have not done this in some years, but the last time I did it I got an email about 24hours after I submitted the "takeout with a link to the relevant ZIP files containing the takeout mail. Keep the Zips under around 4GB unless your an apple person, apparently some apple and linux distributions have issues with Zips over 2Gb.
The Zip contained (or did for me) a collection of MBOX files one for each label and an all mail label as well I think.
Once you have the "takeout" stuff
Create a sub folder in Thunderbird "Local Folders to hold your GMail. Open the troubleshooting information on the help and click the open button in profile in Application basics. Shutdown Thunderbird in the file manager window that opened select and open the mail folder, then the "local folders" folder Now open the folder you created in Thunderbird to hold your gmail. Place the mbox files from the GMail zip into this folder. Rename each of the mbox files so they have no file extension. Windows loves fie extensions and they are hidden be default, so you will need to make them visible before you can start removing them. Files such as inbox.mbox need to end up a inbox. without the mbox. Once this occurs, Windows will stop telling you they are type MBOX. Restart Thunderbird. Access the folder you create for your gmail. Everything should be there. Initial access to each folder will be a little slow as the file will need to be scanned to build the list of emails, but it should be in the seconds to display, not the minutes.
Once the gmail is in local folders I suggest you look at the archive settings and functions. Very simply way to get mail into years and because it is operating on local files fast.
Modified by Matt
Matt said
I will suggest you just back up and start all over again. Mass migration of mail rarely works out if you do things like drag and drop in Thunderbird. It is at best slow and of questionable reliability. My suggestion is go to "Google takeout" (such an American cultural name.) https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout?pli=1 First thing, deselect everything using the button provided as they helpfully select everything Select the mail component files as mbox files and be sure to include all mail data. (this latter is the default). I have not done this in some years, but the last time I did it I got an email about 24hours after I submitted the "takeout with a link to the relevant ZIP files containing the takeout mail. Keep the Zips under around 4GB unless your an apple person, apparently some apple and linux distributions have issues with Zips over 2Gb. The Zip contained (or did for me) a collection of MBOX files one for each label and an all mail label as well I think. Once you have the "takeout" stuff Create a sub folder in Thunderbird "Local Folders to hold your GMail. Open the troubleshooting information on the help and click the open button in profile in Application basics. Shutdown Thunderbird in the file manager window that opened select and open the mail folder, then the "local folders" folder Now open the folder you created in Thunderbird to hold your gmail. Place the mbox files from the GMail zip into this folder. Rename each of the mbox files so they have no file extension. Windows loves fie extensions and they are hidden be default, so you will need to make them visible before you can start removing them. Files such as inbox.mbox need to end up a inbox. without the mbox. Once this occurs, Windows will stop telling you they are type MBOX. Restart Thunderbird. Access the folder you create for your gmail. Everything should be there. Initial access to each folder will be a little slow as the file will need to be scanned to build the list of emails, but it should be in the seconds to display, not the minutes. Once the gmail is in local folders I suggest you look at the archive settings and functions. Very simply way to get mail into years and because it is operating on local files fast.
I appreciate it. I did a TakeOut archive already just in case I blew things up. :) I've done this a bazillion times in Outlook, but I like more about ThunderBird for the most part. Outlook is ok, but Thunderbird just seems to work the way I think. I think that doing it by the 6 month range is working. Never again will I let my emails stack up this much. This is terrible.
I've done this a bazillion times in Outlook, but I like more about ThunderBird for the most part. Outlook is ok, but Thunderbird just seems to work the way I think. I think that doing it by the 6 month range is working. Never again will I let my emails stack up this much. This is terrible.
Do note that Gmail has bandwidth limits. See https://support.google.com/a/answer/1071518?hl=en
Modified by Stans