Thunderbird Community Forum

Running Win10, all the sudden I'm getting Not Responding messages, failures to connect to server, and slow deleting of emails. I tried everything: uninstalling/reinstalling; running on troubleshooting mode; checking compatibility. Nothing works. Any ideas?

Thank you

It says that the folder is in use by some other operation. I tried a Force Quit and a restart and neither worked. Please help.

His OS is 10.13 and his TB is 115.18.0. He kept the old Mini because he was running an ancient version of Photoshop that ran a plugin that is not available for Adobe Creative Cloud.

Robert was a sculptor who did large kinetic work and much of his work is still on that computer.

I am still getting his email on my iPhone, so I don't know what is going on. Unfortunately, I haven't saved his email history on my iPhone so when someone answered a similar problem a couple of years ago, the only place that email would reside is in Robert's inbox on his Mini, which I can't open.

Many thanks for your help.

Ellen

To whom it concerns, It just happened yesterday June 11,2026. I put in my password to my e-mail to open it and it stated that my e-mail account is being processed. Said to wait until processing is complete to get messages. I have never had this issue, I been with Thunder Bird e-mail for years. It isn't even showing my e-mails that I had in my inbox on my e-mail. If you can please help, I need my e-mail up and going. Thank you, Chris Note, it also said that Thunder Bird had crashed in a box, they wanted to know what page I was on. I am not understanding this.

Why the program will not read old zip that thunderbird made,I have watch countless hours of crap on YouTube and still can not read my old zip files, I must be missing a step in process , also I am elderly, so explain it clear Thank you, most appreciated

Hello,

I can't receive any of my e-mails. I can send e-mails out now. Plus I can put in my password to log into my e-mail.  This has been a headache for me, I have been with Thunder Bird for years.

I also get a boxes that says : Unable to write the email to the mailbox. It says to make sure the file system allows me to write privileges, and I have enough disk space to copy the mailbox. I have enough space on my computer system and all. Another box that says my e-mail is being processed. Please wait until processing is complete to get messages. I did e-mail you yesterday on these issues. As I said I can e-mail messages out now also log into my e-mail with my password. Thanks, Chris

duplicate of /questions/1587098 thread

My late husband's oid Mac Mini crashed during a power outage. Firefox is fine but TB says that the inbox is being used by another something and to wait to use it. I can't open it. I keep this computer active because his artworks and videos are on it. And I feel that he is still here if his computer is. You can also reach me at [edited email from community support forum]. I need to get in. Should I just restart? Or will it take more? I do get Robert's email on my iPhone and it is coming in.

To get some information out of the way before reading: my verbose step-by-step is listed below, followed by a summary without the trouble shooting steps. I have read the information about managing profiles when running multiple release channels, but found it a little confusing. If I can improve the formatting here, please let me know and I will edit my post to be more clear.

I am leaving the troubleshooting steps in the event that I did something wrong here.

My questions are primarily: 1. is there a more straightforward way to do this? 2. are there any additional steps to follow after successfully getting both a Release channel installation and a Beta channel installation as far as profile management?

The problem, with step-by-step troubleshooting steps to solve I have Thunderbird Release installed on Linux Mint system-wide, following the instructions here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/installing-thunderbird-linux#w_system-thunderbird-installation

Now I take note of the fact that beta must be installed in a different directory: "It is possible to have multiple channels of Thunderbird installed, and even run them simultaneously. Each must be installed in a different installation directory, which will force multiple Thunderbird data profiles to be used in order to protect and keep your data separated."

• ...so although I have an `/opt/thunderbird/` directory, I rename the downloaded extracted tarball `thunderbird-beta/` and move that directory to `/opt`

I move on to Step 4 from the article linked, creating a symlink.

• what I used to install Release: `sudo ln -s /opt/thunderbird/thunderbird /usr/local/bin/thunderbird`
• what I used today to install Beta: `sudo ln -s /opt/thunderbird-beta/thunderbird /usr/local/bin/thunderbird-beta`

Everything works from here as far as me being able to click on the `thunderbird-beta` executable in `/usr/local/bin` and get into the Beta application with a fresh program.

Here is the step I'm unsure of, and where I run into issues.

In Step 5 of the linked article, when I installed release: "Download a copy of the desktop file": `wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mozilla/sumo-kb/main/installing-thunderbird-linux/thunderbird.desktop -P /usr/local/share/applications`

...gives me a launcher in `/usr/local/share/applications`. I can edit this in a text editor to point to a different icon etc if need be, but when installing release this is obviously already configured.

So when I install beta, I don't want two of the same icons representing different Thunderbird channels, because my assumption is that will cause issues. So instead of downloading this file again, I copy the file I downloaded with `wget` when installing release, and instead of naming it `thunderbird.desktop` I name it `thunderbird-beta.desktop`

• I then edit this file in a text editor to point to the Beta icon in `/opt/thunderbird-beta/chrome/icons/default/default256.png`
• But the resulting file indicates "there was a problem launching the application" and when reopening the file in a text editor, I notice none of my changes have persisted and it's blank.

...I can confirm through a file manager that the icon at `/opt/thunderbird-beta/chrome/icons/default` is a visually different icon with "Beta" added to the bottom of the icon.

So this launcher in `/usr/local/share/applications` is the step I'm having trouble with.

Troubleshooting steps:

• I delete the previously edited `thunderbird-beta.desktop` file, and I rerun the `wget` command to download another copy of `thunderbird.desktop`, this time using the `-o` flag so that the resulting name is `thunderbird-beta.desktop` again. I again edit this with a text editor and point the icon field to `/opt/thunderbird-beta/chrome/icons/default/default256.png`

For some reason, this works: allows me to save my changes and the icon of `thunderbird-beta.desktop` successfully changes to the Beta icon. By default, with no other changes, clicking this successfully launches Thunderbird, but of course it launches my Release version, so I change the Exec parameter to point to the Beta executable in `/usr/local/bin`

And now I get my desired results: start menu entry, separate icon, and launching the Beta release.

So my primary questions again are: 1. I notice that simply running the Beta application once uses the same `.thunderbird` directory that Release uses, and creates its own profile folder, which seems ideal to me. Verifying that this is the expected and preferred behavior? 2. I'm confused about the support article for profile management when running multiple release channels. Do I want to re-add all of my accounts to Beta from inside the application, therefore having two copies of my mail and profiles on my computer?

I have a new computer and I am loading my email accounts into TB. One of them loaded perfectly but the outlook account has been trouble. I have read several forum questions/answers and tried all of the suggestions with no help. I will attach a screen print of the page I get when prompted to enter password credentials. I cannot go further until I can get TB and Outlook to communicate so I need help. I don't want to use Outlook as an email server if possible.

I was hacked on 8th and received no emails until 11th. I think there may have been a couple of important emails but I can't find a way to retrieve them. Can you help please.

This is Ellen. I tried restarting Robert's ( my late husband) computer after it crashed and I got the message about Thunderbird's inbox folder not being able to be opened because it is in use by some other operation. It is an old Mac Mini running 10.13 and it says TB is 115.18.0. I don't update it because I don't think his OS can handle anything newer. I just looked and my Mini with an M1 chip (4 y/o?) is running 140. something.

How do I get it to quit whatever it is hung up on? His email is coming in ok on my iPhone.

Robert was a sculptor who made large kinetic works and a lot of his work is still on this computer.

Please help me get out of this mess. I think it has happened before.

Ellen

Other than being slow to download my emails now for a few months, TB was performing well until a week or so ago. Now it also won't open the downloaded email when I click on it and the TB freezes up so I can't close it out. I have tried restarting computer multiple times and it works for one or two emails that I can open and then starts freezing up again. Makes using it almost impossible. I have security Windows 11 Defender only and have had it the entire time when it also worked well.

Goal: I have outlook on a windows 10 desktop with many .pst files I want to keep (emails in folders and contacts)/import into TB. I want to set up Thunderbird on a new laptop PC and use TB instead of Outlook.

I'm setting up Thunderbird first on my desktop but I don’t know how to import the outlook files – one Q&A answer says first install an older version of TB that can do the outlook import (I started this and it couldn’t find my account so I got stuck); another Q&A answer says the outlook files have to be ‘offered’ to Thunderbird and may or may not be.

Can I have human help? I’m happy to pay. Otherwise I don’t think I can figure it out and I’ll just stick with Outlook. I see someone else switched to TB and then went back to Outlook. Hmmm. I wonder why?

Thank you so much. It sure seems like a great product you offer but it's overwhelming figuring out how to get there from here.

I've been using Thunderbird for years but suddenly as of yesterday it's stopped receiving messages. First it told me my password was incorrect. Ever since then when I try to click "Get Messages," it simply has no response at all. Nothing happens. I went into my Thunderbird password settings, and upon seeing that the incoming-message password had for some reason reverted to an old, obsolete password, I corrected it and saved the correct one. I've checked several times and the passwords are correctly saved now. But this did not fix the problem. When I click "Get Messages," nothing happens. My Thunderbird is connected to my Earthlink account, which is working fine. When I go into Earthlink, I am able to send and receive messages as normal. So the problem is not with Earthlink but with Thunderbird.

I have used Apple Mail, GMail and Outlook; i am hoping that Thunderbird will achieve (relative) zero inbox.

My objective is to create an inbox that observes established rules/filters and directs my emails into the appropriate folders. I was hoping that Thunderbird would achieve this objectives but I have so far been unsuccessful.

I would be happy to screenshare with an appropriate technician in order to resolve this issue as its becoming increasingly frustrating.

I've recently changed one of my emails from example@cpsupply.com to example@yardsignninjas.com and I've been able to send email to other accounts most times. Sometimes the email never gets to the address I'm sending to. However, I haven't been able to receive any emails to the example@yardsignninjas.com and I need to verify it for an application i need to use for work. Why isn't this edited email address receiving mail when I use the new name?

All folders are shown ticked but they do not appear. I can view one folder at a time with Go>Folder>my account>Inbox(say).

Using IMAP. Firefox 151.0.4 I don't know what I could have done to cause this.

I don't wish to use the calendar that comes with Thunderbird, but instead continuing with my Macintosh iCal.

1) How do I switch off the Thunderbird calendar function? 2) How do I get the calendar invitations sent to me as an ICS file attachments, that I can open in Mac iCal. Just like in Airmail and in Microsoft Outlook.

Jonas Möller Nielsen Sweden

I have been using Thunderbird calendar synced to gmail a/c on Linux Mint for many years and have been able to send reminder notifications by email. Recently I had to unsubscribe my calendar and reinstall to clear a fault and the notification by email function has disappeared from Thunderbird event notifications. Can you tell me how to restore that function?

Version 140.11.1esr