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find is greyed out

  • 10 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 50 views
  • Last reply by vandermude

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A quick filter does not meet my needs. I want to find an email from a person in a date range with a "string" in the email body.

I select the triple line thingie in the upper right for a menu. The left side of the menu has: "New Message" "attachments" "Edit" "Find"

The "Edit" selection is greyed out and does not work. How can I do an advanced search?

A quick filter does not meet my needs. I want to find an email from a person in a date range with a "string" in the email body. I select the triple line thingie in the upper right for a menu. The left side of the menu has: "New Message" "attachments" "Edit" "Find" The "Edit" selection is greyed out and does not work. How can I do an advanced search?

Chosen solution

re :find is greyed out

open Thunderbird select a folder select an email - any email will do This should make 'Find' available.

It would appear that under the three horizontal lined menu icon 'Find' is not greyed out providing any email has been selected.

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All Replies (10)

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Hi, is this in Firefox or Thunderbird ? What website if is Firefox ? What security Programs are you running ?

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I clicked on the Thunderbird selection when I posted the question. I use Avast for security - does that matter for a search for a set of emails in Thunderbird?

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I will move the question to Thunderbird support.

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So - will I be able to find an answer?

Right this instance the Find command works, but it is still the case that find is greyed out. And I still can't tell when find works or not.

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I can not seem to get the find to disable. What happens in you press Ctrl+Shift+F

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Thank you for suggesting this. When I close and restart Thunderbird, the find selection is greyed out and Ctrl+Shift+F does nothing - nada.

Now this is interesting. I selected the email with your response. I clicked on the link to bring me here, and I started typing my reply. Then I went back to Thunderbird to test things out and voila! - the find selection works and Ctrl+Shift+F brings up the Search Messages box I wanted to access.

Isn't that weird?

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My guess is where ever you are starting out is not in a "mail" context. after all the menu is to search mail. Just as many menu options are not available when you have a calendar tab open.

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Thanks for a very interesting suggestion.

I went to the Thunderbird options and I cannot find an option to change the starting context. I went to see what the Windows 10 shortcut properties are and saw that it was "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe", so I would expect that Thunderbird would start as the Thunderbird email.

I restarted Thunderbird. The find selection is greyed out as usual, even after I hit "Get Messages". But I notice that Ctrl-Shift-F seems to be working reliably. So I'll just use that in the future, even though the Find menu selection is unavailable. Thanks for your help.

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Chosen Solution

re :find is greyed out

open Thunderbird select a folder select an email - any email will do This should make 'Find' available.

It would appear that under the three horizontal lined menu icon 'Find' is not greyed out providing any email has been selected.

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Thanks everyone for your suggestions!