Thunderbird Community Forum

I download my e-mail from Yahoo using POP3 and OAuth authentication. Downloading works fine until I reach a particular e-mail. Thunderbird says "Downloading message 27 of 52" (or whatever) and then it will stall and eventually timeout. When I go into Yahoo webmail and archive the next message out of the inbox, the rest of the e-mails download.

I know exactly which e-mails can't be downloaded. They are from my Moen Flo account (a device that monitors water use at my house). It is not spam, and it is vital that I receive these e-mails. So identifying the problem e-mails and deleting them via Webmail will allow Thunderbird to download the rest of my e-mail, but it doesn't solve the problem. I saw someone else on the forum had the same problem with USPS tracking e-mails. There are probably more legit e-mails that cause Thunderbird to choke.

Having to go in to webmail every day and delete every legit e-mail that causes the downloading to fail is not a solution. If the e-mail client doesn't work unless you go into webmail first, then what's the point?

Not an ISP problem - I can download with another e-mail client through the same network.

Not an antivirus/firewall problem - I tried it even after uninstalling antivirus and turning off Windows Defender.

This is definitely a Thunderbird problem. I am 30-year IT professional and I have tried everything to narrow it down to this.

So how can we get the developers to look at whatever combination of characters is causing Thunderbird to choke when attempting to download e-mail? I have sample e-mails that reliably cause the problem.

Thank you.

When I went to open Thunderbird this morning it told me the programme was already running. It certainly was. There were an infinite number of Thunderbirds running! After failing to close them all, I closed down the computer and started it again. Thunderbird was veryslow to load and when it did, the display for my inbox was of emails from four years ago. I strted to scroll down using the mouse but then I noticed it was scrolling by itself. Eventually it reached today and had downloaded some messages.

The system is though running very slowly, it takes a while for a message to open and messages which I have left open at the top of the screen for action are not showing subject or content. I operate a complicated system of filing in subfolders of messages I need to keep for reference and the subfolders seem to be ok.

I started using Thunderbird many years ago when a IT friend recommended it because, unlike Outlook, Thunderbird has an infinite capacity. I am wondering however if I have taken that too literally? I must have thousands of emails in my IN box going back years, plus a structure of some subfolders which are never used. Is that likely to be why I am having problems and would I be well advised to do a bit of a mega clear out? Advice please from the more tehnically skilled would be much appreciated! Carol

I see others are having this same issue with no resolution in sight.

The company I work at is unable to print anything through the print preview in Thunderbird. The current work around is to download, open, then print the file.

Does anyone have any further information on this subject besides going through separate avenues to fix the problem?

Thanks!

This post is more for posterity than asking for a solution because all similar topics ended up being Avast antivirus interfering or something less nefarious.

In my case eM client started having this problem first, then I switched to TB, but the same issue here. Of all places, the best clue was found on [[Linux mint|https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=213352]] forums. It was a permission problem. Right click on C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird -> properties -> security. I did two things and not sure which one did it, but they pretty much achieve the same. ...

The Users group in the list only had read permissions so I gave it full access to the folder and checked the option to set the same permission changes to all subfolders. I also added my own personal user to that list and gave that full permissions. Oh yeah, also changed owner to myself from whatever default windows group was there before.

Now, do I know the full repercussions of doing this? No. Pretty sure this just created a security hole inside my C drive, but... I don't really care at this point. If I had to fix this again, a solution might be to instruct TB to store the the email files somewhere else rather than where it is installed itself (somewhere less locked down than Program Files).

Hi, I've been back to Thunderbird since May, and while I'm happy to be moving away from gmail.com I find the experience with thunderbird a little disjointed and frustrating.

And it would be fine if it was not also sluggish.

I have approx 100'000 emails in All mail, 15'000 mail in inbox,203 mail folders and 160 email rules each with about 3 sub-rules each.

When I get a 2 Factor message sometimes it only take 10 seconds, sometimes it takes minutes, sometimes it never appears until I press the "check mail" button, it's never clear what "check mail" even is doing, if anything at all.

My computer is a 16 core Ryzen 5950x with 64gb ddr4 and it is otherwise very fast and I don't have any crapware installed like "mcaffee anti virus" or whatever.

I can't tell but it feels like it is applying every rule to every email in "All Mail" every single time and I'm pretty sure that is why it is so slow.

However the interface is very obtuse about what it is doing, so I have a hard time finding what the problem is.

Now, I am not going to delete my messages and I am not going to have fewer rules. but I think the rules should only be applies to newly received messages and that should only take milliseconds. Also, it should be easy to tell, what it is doing and how much time that takes ?

This indicator, is mostly meaningless

And this window, really doesn't say that much about what it is scanning

If it were saying how many email and which folders it applied rules to

It would feel a lot less sluggish if I was able to see what it is doing and be to tell if it is doing something or just hanging, it is very frustrating to wait and not even be sure if anything is happening at all !

And I greatly suspect that my problem is that it is applying All rules to All mail, not just the new mail, and if that was fixed and the activity manager made more descriptive and responsive, it would not feel so slow and frustrating and I would know what to change to make it faster !

But right now, if I didn't have such distaste for google, I would just go back to gmail which never made me wait more than 2 seconds for anything.

Hello David and thank you for your prompt answer. The situation between my mails ubfortunately remain the same. Nothwithstanding my re-installation of Thunderbird. I run a "HP ProDesk 200 GS MT" PC with Windows 11 and full virus protection etc. I clean my PC and run troubleshooting regularly. Never any problem. And now: Thunderbird opens at command and can be moved on my screen with minutes of delay. I can select mail address book and calender but I can not use them. Incoming ermails show on the screen but I can noy open them. If a drag an incoming mail to my Explorer app, then Explorer gets blocked and I must restart my PC. I can not open the Send Mail function. I can not open older mails on the Expolrer. Thus I am completedly stuck. Can you fix this problem? In case you can not assist me, I will load the Outlook program to get going. Pleas send tour commenst ASAP. Yours Jarl Jaatinen, Finland

I've been using TB for years. Lately I can be browsing the Inbox when the contents will disappear and I get a message saying something like no messages found. After about 30 seconds the Inbox is displayed again.

TB never used to do this and it is similar to Firefox refreshing the screen which it also never used to do this.

Also how do I get from the Beta version to the standard version?

Hi,

I'm running the latest version of Thunderbird 140.12.1esr on 15.7.7 (24G720) on an M1 processor.

I'm witnessing Memory leak > Thunderbird who usually use 800MB jumps to Gb up to 60Gb

It makes this version unusable.

Here is a loom of the incident: https://www.loom.com/share/0b8e661b42d64d749d80adfd71fd1e04

+ a screenshot

Anyone can help ?

Best Olivier

Been using Thunderbird for a number of years but recently the SSD on my laptop became corrupted and I had to buy a new one and install TB and restore my profiles from a backup.

I have two accounts and switch between them with Profile Manager.

The new laptop is an ASUS Vivobook with Win 11 Home and although TB runs ok the first time, if I close the current session and try to open the other account, nothing happens when I click on TB icon on the taskbar. IF I wait for around 5 minutes then it will run

Checked in Task Manager and cant see any instances of TB running, so any thoughts on what's wrong. Does not matter which order I open the accounts.

We are facing issues with Thunderbird mail application.

Incoming emails are not being received in Thunderbird. Thunderbird is running very slowly and frequently becomes unresponsive. Sending and receiving emails is taking a long time. We have already restarted the application and system, but the issue still persists.

Kindly check the mail server settings and Thunderbird configuration from your end and advise on the necessary action to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

Your prompt support will be highly appreciated.

what and who is meadow and why am i getting comcast mail sooner than thundershower it is just to slowit used to come up so much faster id get the new mail quicker now its so slow aand i do not want to uninstall and reinstall and lose my contacts and my extensions please if you know why so slow please let me know i know i sent one like this earlier but i though maybe gibving it time would be better but no it is not

If Thunderbird startup is stopped before tabs are loaded, they are lost. The tab fields at the top of the screen remain but they are empty. Evidently, tabs are stored only in a temporary location. This is a very annoying bug. Is there a way to recover them?

I realize this can be a macOS issue as the problem appeared when I upgraded to 26x but I'm hoping that maybe there's another way of allowing windows to be moved with a mouse. This issue appears only under tbird and not under any other Apple or non-Apple products.

The new child window(s) opens up in the default location(s).

The issue has survived several OS updates up to the current one. I switched from macOS 15x to 26x in around January 26.

Firefox does not really open any child windows that I could find but browsing windows work as expected.

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.

I've been using Thunderbird for years with little problems. Until now. It won't let me compress as its saying I don't have any space left. Is there any way email files can be deleted to free up the space? I've deleted virtually every application from my drive and it still won't work. Many thanks Paul

When I highlight multiple messages for deletion; it can take up to a minute to respond; when I am working with gmail or proton, the deletion is immediate. When I am accessing Reagan with browser, the multiple deletions are also immediate. Appears to definitely be a handoff issue. Suggestions? I use Thunderbird on 2 win11 os and 2 linix mint 2.1 machines. I only delete and store to local on one machine (win11) ver/build 23H2: 22631.6199.

I keep email tabs open if I am going to have to reference the email for some reason -- shipping product tracking emails, legal documents, threads of conversations that are ongoing. Every so often, Thunderbird decides to open with all of the tabs blank. It's unrecoverable, and I have to search each of the tabs I really needed to open up again after spending time X ing the blank ones.

I've been filing about this bug for years now. Mostly what I get is a bored moderator/mentor telling me why that isn't a priority, and how I should change my emailing behavior. I just lost track of several legal documents and am anticipating working for hours to get them back on top.

I'm very sick of it.