Thunderbird Community Forum

Thunderbird causes my machine to 'hang' from time to time,

1. often for up to a second and usually a number of times in quick succession on each ocasion. Sometimes this happens frequently - say every 5 or 10 minutes - sometimes only after an hour or more since the past occurrance.

2. My machine hangs completely - nothing will work, mouse, keyboard, sound, other apps etc. If I happen to be typing (into any app - including Thunderbird - when this happens, input ceases, the cursor freezes and - if the problem persists for a second or two, Windows reports "[app] is not responding"

3. I cannot be certain, but I believe the problem occurs whilst messages are being retrieved.

This is a very serious problem as it means that I can never leave TB running as the problems it causes are not acceptable.

4. This means I cannot deal with incoming messages without periodically re-starting TB - which is an utter PIA.

I am running Win 11 Professional on a 2-year old machine with 64 Gb of memory. I have run TB in Troubleshoot mode, I have confirmed that the problem occurs regardless or whatever other apps are running (or none) and I have proven conclusively that no other app causes any kind of similar problem.

Looking forward yto hearing if others have had the same issue and what can be done about it.

Hi, I have two accounts in my Thunderbird. They are Gmail (regular gmail account) and CFCC (an institutional account). The CFCC shows up in my Unified Folder list but the Gmail does not. Is that normal? The main Inbox is showing all incoming emails from both accounts so no performance issues, just wondering how to get rid of the CFCC (if that's possible) to eliminate clutter. Thank you. GES

In the email address tree on the start up page of Thunderbird, how can I manually sort the email address order? I have an address I would like to move to the top of the list.

I know it can be done, but I can not for the life of me remember how. Please help.....

I've read a lot of suggestions on the FAQ section, but what they are offering, I do not have listed in/on my Thunderbird.

Thank you.

There is (of all things!) almost too much information to process about using Firefox's email, messaging, and security options. It seems there is no longer a dedicated email application, and I cannot disentangle what I need to do to either move completely from gmail or mask my gmail account somehow through a maze of layers.

After many years of using Thunderbird I am now considering ditching it. I am continually getting the Authorisation Failure message when trying to open Thunderbird. Why does this keep happening? It does not happen on my Android devices, just on Windows 11. I have tried deleting all three gmail accounts and re entering them. All is fine until I close down Thunderbird and then open it again. I run Norton 360 and have tried taking off Norton email security, but that didn't work. Any ideas, please?

I had logged this issue in early 2025 but it has never been resolved and still exists.

I received a reply today, Tuesday 7th July, from Wayne Mery, who said "If you are still having problems when using a newer version, please post a new question and we'll take a new look at it.". as the original post has been archived.

So, here are the details:

"I am currently running Thunderbird 152.0.1 (64-bit) and I don't get an automatic prompt for updates and haven't been getting them since I updated to Supernova and now Nebula.

I have the settings set to Check for updates, but let me choose whether to install them, which is the setting I have always had and I used to get automatic prompts for updates with a window opening to show the details of the update as I get in Firefox.

Can someone tell me how to get these automatic updates back."

I have attached a screenshot of the original version.

Thanks.

I have attached a screenshot of the retention settings for the Gmail All Mail folder. This folder contains emails that have a date nine years ago. Can you tell me if I did something wrong in the retention settings?

I thought earlier today it was using the retention settings but I just checked and it is not.

How do I import *.ICS file in a reasonable amount of time. I have appointments in an ics file of less than 1 K in size, typically 700 - 800 bytes in size and they take HOURS to import and do not connect properly then to allow editing the appointment. This is from Baylor Scott and White, a major hospital system in Texas. If there is a problem with the imported file structure, please point me to the correct file structure. I like Thunderbird, but this part of the calendar is very frustrating. Clarence

We use Thunderbird because of its flexibility across multiple OS and interfaces. We have only one PC using Windows, and that is a Microsoft surface running Windows 11. On that machine, emails are, from time to time, delayed, sometimes by 12 hours or more.

The emails come through normally on Android and Linux machines, and we had no difficulty on the Surface until we upgraded it from Win10 to Win10. The emails can also readily be accessed using a web interface to the provider's Apache server. Meanwhile, asking Thunderbird to get emails consistently reports "No new emails".

This is a very intermittent problem, with no discernable pattern to when it happens, or how long the messages get delayed.

Can anyone give me some pointers on where to start troubleshooting this?

I logged into email today and most of my folders are missing from left side of screen. I have inbox, deleted, sent, and a couple more i created. I missing many folders I created. I have not had a problem like this and have used thunderbird for many years.

It's very odd. Normally moving an email, say from the Inbox to the relevant year's archive, takes "no time at all".

Which is true for all the mailboxes shown on the attached screenshot, EXCEPT for the four at the bottom. Moving even one message from Inbox to Yiddish can take ten seconds or longer (with the dreaded "Not Responding" occasionally). Moving something in the opposite direction is also screwy, only from those four.

I had thought that it was because they're rather large. This first started when there were just Yiddish and MSW, and I split off most of the earlier years into the archives shown. To no avail.

It's only an annoyance, but I'm puzzled about how such a thing could happen.

Also very slow tagging or untagging a message just in those mailboxes.

On Saturday morning 27 June 2026 I tried to login my Orcon email account via Thunderbird (which I have been using for a long time). But my login didn't work, I got a message saying "login to POP3.orcon.net.nz with username habitation failed." On 30th June 2026 I reported the problem to Orcon.

Orcon gave me the following settings for Thunderbird. I have done that and even made a new account: Incoming Server Type: IMAP Mail Server: imap.orcon.net.nz Port: 143 SSL: Off Authentication: On (username and password required)

Outgoing SMTP Server: Mail Server: smtp.orcon.net.nz Port: 25 SSL: Off Authentication: Off

Since then I have spent many hours and going around in circles with Orcon's Technical Support to resolve this, but no luck. They blame Thunderbird. I used Thunderbird Troubleshoot Mode. The message that comes up reads: login to server mail orcon.net.nz with username habitation failed. Please can you check that your server settings above are correct? And if there is a bug? Irma

Is there a bug in the code for v152? I need to connect to a ms office 365 email account with requires OAuth

The create new account process does not work, because it forces you to go through the whole (manual) process which then fails because you cannot select the Oauth option from Authentication method dropdown box - because its not there !.

This URL with the process to add OAuth: https://www.bing.com/search?pglt=419&q=setting+OAuth+in+thunderbird&cvid=22ed20c67b3843d58ddbc136bed2f174&gs_lcrp=EgRlZGdlKgYIABBFGDkyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQABhAMgYIAhAAGEAyBggDEAAYQNIBCTExMjgyajBqN6gCCLACAQ&FORM=ANNTA1&PC=ASTS

fails at Step 2 because it does not let you complete to then go to Step 3 - because the account is never created !

How do I fix this ? thanks

I am getting a lot of phishing emails. They all come from email addresses from "onmicrosoft.com". These I can find pretty easy. The other thing they have in common is this URL/'server name' in the Message Header "send.workwithshadow.com".

Is there a way to search and/or filter for text in the Message Header?

Thanks, Walter Cook

When I try to forward email with attachment. I get a error message stating I dont have access for the attached file so every time I have to remove the attachment in the email and download the attachment from original email and attach to my email. Which is frustrating and time consuming process.

What I thick is there is storage path issue with my email setup.

Please assist to resolve this issue.

For about a week now I have been unable to send emails. Receiving them is fine. 1 had just said yes to the latest update. When I try to send I get this message - Sending of the message failed. An error occurred while sending mail. The mail server responded: Service unavailable; Client host [125.214.85.178] blocked using b.barracudacentral.org; http://www.barracudanetworks.com/reputation/?pr=1&ip=125.214.85.178. Please check the message recipient "reply-fe9515767360017975-18_HTML-75443594-7238404-12125@emails.avg.com" and try again.

I am 71, not technologically minded but am rather frustrated by this.

I hope you can help me out.

Thank you

Rita