Thunderbird Community Forum

I thought Thunderbird was free to use. It's asking me to donate and I can't access my current emails from my account. If this is free than why on earth do I HAVE to donate to get access to my emails. That is not right. Please help me.

Thank you Malcolm

I see it as Thunderbird hijacking the resources of my computer to run Firefox and take me to the donation website. I'm fine with the request for money in the Thunderbird screen, I can navigate away from that. Don't open programs other than Thunderbird before I require them.

Hi,

My computer crashed, and when it came back up I'm unable to locater any of my folders in Thunderbird. THis is a HUGE problem for me, as I have SO MUCH stored in the folders there. When I close and restart Thunderbird, it asks me to "Set Up Your Exising Email Address" Blow that it says, "To use your current email address fill in your credentials. Thunderbird will automatically search for a working and recommended server configuration."

So, I think it's treating me like I don't have an account, but I can see my address book with like 4,200 contacts in there.

Please help! Thanks so much in advance.

Danny

I am attempting to transfer my Thunderbird Profile from and old computer (call it "SOURCE") to a new computer ("TARGET"). I have tried everything prescribed in the documentation. It fails every time.

[1] I tried importing the ".Thunderbird\Profiles\xyz.default: folder from SOURCE to TARGET (Tools -> Import). It starts the import, but soon aborts with the incomprehensible message:

1747152229330 addons.xpi WARN Checking C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\distribution\extensions for addons Found 0 public keys and 0 secret keys (0 protected, 0 unprotected) RNPLib.jsm:559:15 1747152229736 addons.xpi WARN Addon with ID thunderbird-compact-light@mozilla.org already installed, older version will be disabled 1747152229736 addons.xpi WARN Addon with ID thunderbird-compact-dark@mozilla.org already installed, older version will be disabled Uncaught NS_ERROR_ILLEGAL_VALUE: Component returned failure code: 0x80070057 (NS_ERROR_ILLEGAL_VALUE) [nsIWebProgress.addProgressListener] <anonymous> chrome://messenger/content/aboutMessage.js:119 aboutMessage.js:119 1747152289419 Toolkit.Telemetry WARN TelemetryStorage::_scanArchive - have seen this id before: e4a0732e-f511-4cb6-ba38-be42dbd2b48f, overwrite: false Uncaught (in promise) NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND: Component returned failure code: 0x80520012 (NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND) [nsIFile.copyTo] _recursivelyCopyMsgFolder resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.jsm:659 _importMailMessages resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.jsm:588 _importServersAndAccounts resource:///modules/ThunderbirdProfileImporter.jsm:248 2 ThunderbirdProfileImporter.jsm:659

I have tried importing over a network, and also after copying the whole Profile from SOURCE to TARGET first, in an intermediate work area.

[2] I can't Zip my Profile, it's 16GB.

[3] I tried manually copying the profile directly from SOURCE to TARGET's "C:\Users\myLoginID\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\". When I start Thunderbird, it only shows the first few email folders, the rest are missing.

I have used this procedure successfully many years ago between two other computers.

I am desperate, I put my trust in Thunderbird, and now I cannot move forward, my business is in jeopardy. My old computer has started failing, it's on its last legs, and could soon become unusable.

I contribute to Thunderbird every year, and am a strong supporter.

Why is it that sometimes I cannot use edit > paste as quotation. Sometimes I can then simply paste the text but sometimes not. I can't paste at all, that is. If I can't paste at all, but I paste into Notepad, then I can copy that plain text into TBird and it shows up. Different format but I don't really care about that.

This has been going on for years thru many TBird versions. And I cannot see any pattern in when pasting or pasting-as-quotation fails. It seems completely random.

Is there anything I can do to fix the problem? or better troubleshoot?

Thanks, Jeanne (Windows 11, TBird ver. 128.7.1esr (32-bit))

I use Thunderbird for email and Edge for my browser. Unfortunately the icons for the two are so similar it's difficult to tell them apart. I'd like to suggest that Thunderbird/Mozilla allow users to substitute their own icons for the running programs if they don't want to use the default one.

Hi,

I'm using thunderbird for over twenty years, and for ages I have been using a customizable list view where I could limit the list view of messages in a mail folder based on rules, eg. message tag, age in days, sender, has attachment, things like that, and had a lot of rules to limit the view of messages.

Now I am on a trip, away from home, with a freshly installed Ubuntu 25.04 and latest thunderbird, 128.10.0esr-1, and I can't find how to enable the selection menu to limit the view to tags or customized rules.

The quick filter bar seems to be somewhat redesigned, and it seems to have lost the option to add this menu to the quick filter bar.

Where have these customizable views gone to? I can't find them anymore, although I am sure I do have these working on my machines at home.

(And no, don't propose to use saved searches, they are not a substitute for that.)

I'm trying to create an event that start from time in PST, and end in China Standard Time. However, the date time selector doesn't seems to be aware with the timezone I selected and still prompt that I selecting wrong time.

I'm on the latest stable Thunderbird release, 138

I have a downloaded application of Thunderbird 78.6.1 on my computer from 2021. With my new Windows 11 Pro I had to download and install 138.0 (64 bit) and I'd like to go back to 78.6.1. Can I install it by running the application from the old download? If so, do I need to uninstall 138.0 first?. Will my address book and emails be safe? Is there any profile mix up I should be concerned about?

Hello,

The latest version, 128.10.0esr, was recently released, and one of the changes is:

Changed color override defaults with high contrast mode on macOS and Linux

https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/128.10.0esr/releasenotes/?uri=/thunderbird/releasenotes/&locale=en-US&version=128.10.0&channel=esr&os=Darwin&buildid=20250425031534

I use dark mode, but I prefer to view the email body in light mode, as this is typically the sender’s default formatting. To achieve this, I previously configured: • Settings → General → Fonts & Colors → Colors • Set Text to black and Background to white • Enabled “Override the colors specified by the content with my selections above:” and set it to “Only with High Contrast themes”

However, since this update, this setting no longer works. Now, the only workaround is to manually click the “Turn dark mode off” button for each email, which does work. But it’s inconvenient to do this every time.

Is there a way to disable dark mode for all email bodies by default, so I don’t need to click the button each time?

Thank you!

Yours,

My user upgraded Thunderbird to v136 and no longer can sync his calendar on our IMAP server (Cyrus). When Thunderbird attempts to log into the calendar Cyrus logs an "Internal Server Error" with the detail

May 5 15:11:39 XXXXX cyrus/https[198300]: badlogin: [10.8.0.10] Basic SASL(-1): generic failure: All-whitespace username. May 5 15:11:39 XXXXX cyrus/https[198300]: [10.8.0.10] with "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:138.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/138.0" via SESSIONID=<cyrus-1746483098-198300-1-4996003587903488780>; "PUT /dav/calendars/user/XXXXX/Default/040000008200E00074C5B7101A82E00800000000E0076891A1BDDB0100000000000000001000000076BAF045101B7D4EA90CA085DF4D7B11.ics HTTP/2" (if-none-match=*) => "HTTP/2 500 Internal Server Error" (stream-id=3; error=The server encountered an internal error.) [timing: cmd=0.000448 net=0.000035 total=0.000483]

The user can access their email so their account username/password is stored correctly in Thunderbird, it's just not making it to the calendar subsystem.

Failure is 100%. The user can access their calendar from the previous version of Thunderbird and by using another app on their phone.

Hi, I've successfully downloaded and installed Firefox on my HP laptop with Windows 10 and now attempting to download and install the Thunderbird email client. On Thunderbird.net when I click the Download button, the Donation Page pops up (and I made a donation) then closed that window. I'm then on the Thank You page but there is no prompt to install, so just stuck on the Thank You page. Thunderbird is not appearing in my downloads file. Can you please help?

1. Thunderbird was not my default mail client in Windows. When I tried to select it as default it did not appear in Windows' list of applications.

2. I tried to find the my profile and it showed where it was - but that directory did not exist. I finally was able to make a new profile and the directory showed up - but then the default-esr profile disappeared and now I can't find it and neither can Thunderbird. Is there a way to find where it went? I don't believe I delete it, it just went away. This is the message I get:

Your Thunderbird profile cannot be loaded. It may be missing or inaccessible

I had set my Ubuntu 22.04 browser to Chromium for a while, but decided that all my cookies are in Firefox so I chose to switch back. Full reset after power-off, of course.

My Environment Variable $BROWSER is now set to Firefox, but Thunderbird apparently has a mind of its own. ;-) It still opens or switches to Chromium with every web link executed.

I've explored the ~/.thunderbird/ directory but see nothing there.

What am I missing that I need to be educated about?

Thanks in advance!

 -- Don Wilde

Looking for a way to let two Windows 10 user accounts access the same Thunderbird account/files.

We have a desktop PC used by two people, 'C' and 'S'. They each have a Windows user account, but share an a general email address (don't ask...)

The Thunderbird installation has at least 32GB worth of mail, going back several years, which I'd prefer not to duplicate on the hard drive. Additionally, mail is only stored on the server for 2 weeks, before being deleted. The Thunderbird installation is accessed from user account 'C'. The computer will, for practical reasons, only be used by one person at a time, but they will both be logged in most of the time, and would likely both have Thunderbird running at the same time.

Is there a way to direct Thunderbird, opened from user account 'S', to the files used by 'C'?

Thanks!

There are 2 questions in the Q&A section without any reply. I have no idea what has transpired since this morning when the dates were perfect. I went out for about 3 hours and on return the clock is showing a 12-hour clock without am or pm. So searching by date and time is a laborious process. I cannot find anything in settings relating to 12 or 24. What am i missing? Thanks

Hello everybody I'm using Thunderbird version 115.10.1 (64-Bit) German. This question appeared some years ago. Now I'm still confronted with the same question. When I reply to messages or I'm up to forward a message, my signature is not inserted. I used TB for a very long time and I used this feature in the past extensively. I think, this must be an issue to TB .

Have always set up accounts so they download all messages to hard drive.

Since 3/27/25, it is as if it never officially logs the downloads as downloaded, so it downloads each day as if it hasn't been done since 3/27/25, marking all of the messages since then as new.

File is very large so want to try fixing without deleting entire file.

Tried the 'repair this folder' but that didn't work.

Having trouble identifying the exact folder on the hard drive to delete since there are several different accounts in the Thunderbird setup.