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Emails keep being downloaded

  • 17 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by Wayne Mery

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Thunderbird restarts downloading all my aprox 30,500 gmails every time I open my computer/connect to the internet. I have an IMAP account, latest version of Thunderbird. Windows 10

Thunderbird restarts downloading all my aprox 30,500 gmails every time I open my computer/connect to the internet. I have an IMAP account, latest version of Thunderbird. Windows 10

All Replies (17)

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Does this screenshot help?

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Those are the settings it already has

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Yes but you need to change them if you don't want to download it all :) I was just trying to show you where the settings for it are.

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JimDeadlock said

Yes but you need to change them if you don't want to download it all :) I was just trying to show you where the settings for it are.
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Thank you, but what settings should I use so that Thunderbird downloads all the emails from my gmail account once and then, having downloaded all of them once and stored them on my computer, only downloads and stores the new ones?

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What you've described is the default behaviour, so the answer is do nothing, just wait patiently for it to download and index them the first time, then after that you'll be fine.

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Will it really be fine? The same problem started happening about 6 months ago on my old computer and I almost abandoned using Thunderbird because whenever I connected to the internet it started downloading all my old emails. It was impossible to write new emails while the old ones were downloading so I had to disconnect the internet whenever I wanted to write an email. The problem continued for months and was never resolved. I was hoping I wouldn't have the same problem with my new computer but it appears I am. As I write this Thunderbird is telling me it's currently downloading 36,717 of 30,495 which seems very bizarre.

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You are probably having this problem because the queue is so huge that you never give it a chance to finish, so it has to keep retrying. Why don't you leave it overnight and see what happens? The whole point of the downloading is so that it has local copies of messages to look at, which saves a lot of time in the long term but it does mean you have to allow it to do all the downloading and indexing initially.

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Right. I'll leave it to download overnight and hope for the best.

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This seems similar to the problem I was having outlined in the last response on this thread:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1264511

You might want to try and do what I did.

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Hi Peg, In addition to the other advice you've been given, Thunderbird should not be re-downloading messages that have already been downloaded, so I suspect that something else is going on.

Are you running any third-party software, such as the following:

  • security software, firewalls, or internet safety
  • virus or malware checkers
  • backup or disk utility or cleaner software

If yes, can you provide the names of those software products?

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JimDeadlock said

You are probably having this problem because the queue is so huge that you never give it a chance to finish, so it has to keep retrying. Why don't you leave it overnight and see what happens? The whole point of the downloading is so that it has local copies of messages to look at, which saves a lot of time in the long term but it does mean you have to allow it to do all the downloading and indexing initially.
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JimDeadlock said

What you've described is the default behaviour, so the answer is do nothing, just wait patiently for it to download and index them the first time, then after that you'll be fine.
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After leaving Thunderbird downloading overnight the problem seems to have been resolved. Currently when I open a folder it's just doing a quick check but not downloading any emails. Looks hopeful. Thank you.

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How about marking mine as the chosen solution? It'll be my first one :)

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I know you've made progress, but I have to ask what antivirus software are you running?