Thunderbird Community Forum

Hi there,

    I've recently had a problem with a couple of client PCs where their Thunderbird profile folder has grown to fill the entire hard drive. In both cases, the relevant account folder in the profile's ImapMail dir had grown to over 300Gb. This account takes up 45Gb on the server (where I'm running Dovecot with maildir storage). In another case on both PCs, an 18Gb account had grown to over 90Gb.
   Both client PCs are running up-to-date Thunderbird (139.0.2 64bit), one under Windows 10 and one under Windows 11. Both had auto-compact set, with the minimum saving reduced to 100Mb. Both problematic accounts are shared accounts that use a deeply-nested folder structure. In both cases, I was forced to delete and then recreate the these accounts in Thunderbird.
   I'm an experienced sysadmin who is also running the mail server, so I am able to provide any extra info needed. Additionally, I accept that these are large email accounts; I'm in the process of setting up an email archive system for the client using Piler. I have read many other reports of outsize Thunderbird data folders; these are usually referring to less than 20Gb. The problems we're having seem to be an order of magnitude larger!
   Thanks in advance, P.

Thunderbird 128.5.2esr (32-bit) Odd problem in that just one folder was being identified as not being able to be compacted because of Disk Space....not true, plenty of space as I keep it regularly cleaned. I can clear the issue by making another folder of a different name, copying all messages to that folder then running COMPACT on the new folder and nothing is amiss. Run it on the original problem folder and no issues. Delete the original folder and create another with the same old name and transfer the messages to the now new originally named folder. Delete the TEMP folder. Then run a COMPACT on the problem folder and no issues.

Then run compact on the whole message tree and sure enough the COMPACT issue has now moved to a different folder. I suspect you could chase this thing till the cows come home but won't resolve, just moves it from folder to folder.

Now I could just kill Thunderbird and reinstall but this is intriging. Not sure if that would help. Ran TROUBLESHOOT MODE clean with out the only extension I use and no change. Stumped.

Thanks!

Hello My wife was writing a long email and saved at regular intervals. Today my wife asked where here email, in drafts, was as she could only find one with a few characters for the message .... it's possible that she has blank the whole draft at some point and hence the saved draft with just 3 characters. Is there anyway to access the previosuly saved versions? Even if she could access one which only had 3/4 or 1/2 of what she typed it would help .... I feel that the lastest version of the saved message is all she has ?? Anyone know different? Many thanks in anticipation Neill

I'm trying to add a colored border to an image inserted into the body of an email. I use the Advanced Image Editor and select the HTML Attributes tab. I select "border" from the Attributes dropdown menu and then add "6px red" as the value. This generates a 6px black border, but does not accept the color (or other) value.

How do I modify other values of the border? Is there a tutorial somewhere on using the Advanced Image Editor?

I have a laptop with windows 10 & Thunderbird 128.9.1 and a Samsung S10 using the Samsung email. Both are configured with IMAP. When I open the Samsung email to view and download emails, I can then get home and open my laptop with Thunderbird where it will also download.

If I were to log onto the Gmail through a web browser the email will show in the "all mail" label and no longer be in the inbox, unless I do the phone first and it stays in the inbox until downloaded on the laptop.

so I can't get it on the phone if the laptop is used first. Any ideas ? because logging on to Gmail through the web browser to forward it myself is a pain thanks in advance Mick

I used ImportExportTools NG to export messages from one profile and import to another.

I tried to export only selected messages from my one of my local folders (it seemed an option, but IET NG is not intuitive).

Whatever, the import process has created a sub-folder in the local folder of the same name, and there is a huge redundancy (duplication) resulting.

My question: how can I merge the sub-folder into the parent, when dragging and dropping is not allowed?

Can anyone tell me how to set up the THUNDERBIRD TO ALWAYS LOG-IN into its own Messenger and avoid the Yahoo's interference with his INADEQUATE Messenger format - this should not be high-science question but I have difficulties to find an information in the HELP-section - thanks, Tony H. ...!

I have mail in my calendar. [email removed]@gmail.com there is a reminder in the calendar. As a task. I can't delete it. Server error. It is not available on the Gmail server.

Hello guys: In MANY YEARS of using Thunderbird, my Incoming messages have started collected in Trash INSTEAD of in the 'Inbox' Folder ALWAYS set in 'Inbox' Folder set as the default: I have spent a lot of times searching for the cause of this malfunction but I can't find to find the cause and the way how to resolve this malfunction. Can anyone provide an effective help to correct this problem please - many thanks, Tony H.

I want to put email on my iPhone 8. Do I currently have Pop or IMAP? (Either one if fine for me to have on my phone.) Also if I switch from Pop to IMap will I lose my current emails?

As everyone using Thunderbird knows, TB folders are displayed in a column down the left side. Four of those folders are named "New Folder With Items" (three with numbers appended to the name). Those folders are empty, and I have no idea how they got there in the first place. I've tried deleting them but they always remain as before. I've attached a screenshot of those folders.

This is not a "serious" problem, just an annoying one. Any ideas how to actually delete those folders?

In composing e-mail text, for effective communications, i helps to be able to identify major divisions of text by using, for examples, ALL UPPERCASE, Title Case." Sentence case (another issue.)

I can't find it on this support site; (nor can your search engine.) It seems an odd oversight for an APP whose raison t'etre is communication.

Any help you can offer will be welcome. There are workarounds but all of them add to an already unacceptable burden of having to work around the workarounds that every Update to any software element of the system, however, minor, tends to generate.

Thanks, Jim R.

So....shame on me, but I have some 19,870 emails dating back a couple of years of which I've done nothing about until now after having other TB email issue. Now it's time to tackle this problem. I've been clicking on my mouse like a robot just going down the line getting rid of all these old emails that at this point mean nothing to me. Obviously after a couple of years they're meaningless and anything important I might've needed, I've dealt with. Is there a way to delete the rest of these unwanted-unneeded emails other than just clicking away as I've been doing. Also....this has caused a problem with compacting my Inbox emails. Any help out there would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you, Michael....

A few days ago, after several years happy use of Thunderbird, it has stopped downloading my emails to my computer where I have stored them for several years - off line I have no idea how to address the issue as nothing has changed at my end. I am thinking the only solution may be to backup all the data uninstall and reinstall thunderbird - if so what is the safest way to do that please?