Open the Account Settings in Thunderbird and click on the Server Settings for your Gmail account. I assume you have the 'check for new messages at startup' box ticked? Underneath that, have you ticked 'check for new messages every ... minutes'? If you haven't, make sure that is ticked, and set the frequency to every 15 minutes.

Did not solve problem!

I did as you said and they were ticked and latter set for 10 mins.

When I opened TB this morning there was nothing so I checked GMail inbox and your message was there. I did nothing with it at all - did not open it - and went back into TB and your message was then there!!

This has only started recently. I have been on TB for years. The only thing I noticed was in Control Panel - Programs and Features it show TB as a program but it shows it as a date 2 days ago only and it has been on there forever! Could this be an automatic update which I knew nothing about and this caused this problem?

Thanks

Gordon

I would think it's possible, yes: a lot of the problems that people raise in this forum seem to occur soon after an update. In many cases it's not that the latest version of Thunderbird is faulty, rather it's an incompatibility with some add-on that the user has installed: if the add-on is not updated at the same time (and that depends on the developer who maintains it) problems can arise. So it might be an idea to disable your add-ons for a while and see if Thunderbird runs OK without them: if it does, you can enable them one by one until you find the source of the mischief. I have also read that sometimes when an update occurs, Windows treats the new version as a new program, and the Windows virus scanner interferes with it. I don't use Windows myself so I can't advise on that, but Windows users are often recommended to create an exception for Thunderbird so that its files aren't scanned. You may want to check whether that's an issue for you.

Thanks for replying so soon - are you in USA or Manchester England!

I did what you said on both counts but it has made no difference - I had to go into GMail to get your message.

I sent myself an email as a test case and that came back directly to TBird immediately!

GMail is set to default to IMAP which it always is. Do I need also to add POP? I thought that POP is the old 'system' I used years ago.

Going back to what I said about TBird showing in programs list as only installed 2 days ago - all my other programs retain their original downloaded date even when updated!

Should I try to re-install TBird completely perhaps with the previous release? Gmail is great but I really need to keep my emails in folders for reference which is why I chose it some years ago.

Thanks for your help anyway

Grdon

I wouldn't go back to POP since your IMAP settings are fine most of the time. And I wouldn't try to have both POP and IMAP for the same account, I believe that's a recipe for problems. Your basic issue as outlined in your first post is that your Gmail account in Thunderbird works OK most of the time, but not always. You've also now mentioned that you keep (many?) emails in different folders. Are all those folders synchronised with Gmail? Because if so, every time that Thunderbird tries to check for new mail on your account, it will (I believe) try to check all the folders, and that could be quite a task. I'm wondering if somehow the checking process runs out of time or stalls before it is completed. I have a Gmail account in Thunderbird with only the basic Inbox and Sent folders and not more than 50 emails in all, but even that I have noticed is sometimes slow when trying to connect: because Gmail is such a popular provider there's a vast amount of traffic I guess. Another factor to consider is whether your connection to the internet is slower at some times than others. I have an ordinary domestic ISP installation and it does vary, though less so these days than it used to. If I were in your shoes I'd be looking to store saved emails in the Local Folders account in Thunderbird, unless it's really necessary for you to have them on the Gmail server -- e.g. so that you can access them on another device as well. If you can reduce the volume of emails that you are asking Thunderbird to keep synchronised, performance may be more reliable. Here are two articles worth reading: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Performance_-_Thunderbird http://kb.mozillazine.org/Gmail

Thanks for that - I looked carefully at everything and all my settings were exactly as you said they should be so.....

I went into my GMail and cleared out a lot of old mail (there was not much as after 30 days it went to Trash and was deleted, however..........

Looking in TBird I had about 20 folders and including ALL Mail and Deleted I had emails going back 2 years!!

It took some time to delete them all but it seems that may have been the problem as my emails are now coming through ok from GMail to TBird!

Thanks for staying with me on tis one - most appreciated.

Regards Gordon

I'm glad it seems to have worked out OK for you. You'll see from the Gmail article to which I referred that it's usually unnecessary to have the 'all mails' folder in Thunderbird: it just duplicates the contents of the other folders, so it's an overhead you can do without. There are instructions in that article for how to remove it, if you haven't already done so.