Thunderbird Community Forum

Is it possible to add different background colours to the three inbox folders I have now, please? I can change the colours of mail I send (via Composition), but not mail I get. It'd make it easier to prioritise work flow. I've found an old (2020) AddColors Add-On as part of the Unified Folders page but it's no longer supported and Firefox doesn't verify it.

I have two personal Thunderbird accounts that were under two other email addresses on an old computer. They are [email1] @mlecwb.net and [email2] @mlecwb.net

Can I access them another way, since that computer is not working well enough to download emails? Plus the old email addresses will be disappearing with the the company l have the email addresses under.....

Then if I can get into the old messages, can I download and save some of the messages - or at least important ones in specific group files - onto another computer or a laptop? Or even on a CD?

Also, could I still use Thunderbird under another email address?

Susan Clark Harris [email3] @outlook.com

I have 2 parallel accounts with the same ISP. As of 2 days ago, whenever I try to send mail, I get this message:

  “Sending of the message failed. An error occurred while sending mail. The mail server responded: Command rejected. Please verify that your email address is correct in your account settings and try again.”

I receive mail as normal. Using the other address with exactly the same settings allows me to send normally as I have for the past ten years! Nothing appears different anywhere in the settings. There were no upgrades that I am aware of. I have since found that I can send from my basic little "travel" computer without issue. Any ideas? BTW, using POP mail settings.

Hi, Forums - I am a new Thunderbird user based on on-line research suggesting Thunderbird as the best way to relieve gmail account with local mailbox archiving. My gmail is out of storage by end of the month and my plan was to move a bunch of old messages into local Thunderbird mailbox to clear room in the google account. I have set up Thunderbird successfully with gmail using IMAP connectivity option. Thunderbird shows same folder structure as labels in gmail and displays all messages from the oldest to newest. So then I tried the "archiving" by setting up a folder structure under Thunderbird's Local Folders. Specifically, to start with I I set up Inbox_archive and Sent_archive and used right click Move To > Local Folders > Folder name to move old messages from live ...@gmail.com tree to Local Folder tree. Since there is also an option Copy To, my understanding was that Move should be different from Copy by also removing messages from gmail and move them to Local folders. At a first glance these steps seemed to work. I see unique old messages in Thuderbird Local Folders. I don't see these messages in Thunderbird's gmail inbox/sent and I also don't see these messages when I search in on-line gmail in:inbox and in:sent. I noticed, however, that google storage size didn't budge. I moved a thousand of more messages in the same way (thinking maybe older messages were just small) and the storage still didn't decrease. I then looked around in on-line gmail and found the messages that I presumed "archived" still sitting in gmail's All Mail. This explains why the storage size didn't change. I searched on the forum and on-line and can't get a confident answer on what am I missing to actually remove the messages from gmail - ideally in the most straightforward manner in one action as a cut and paste from on-line to local folders. Are there any IMAP/account settings that I should have so that Thunderbird's "Move to" actually removes messages from on-line account? Or is there a different archiving command/strategy I need to use?

I am hesitant to do any more trial and error on my own since I already messed up my gmail by having now thousands of messages still sitting in All Mail without proper Inbox and Sent tags and, thus, would appreciate the recommendation from someone who is familiar with my use case.

Thank you.

For quite a few months now, Thunderbird has been acting weird. My emails download, I can sometimes open and delete some, but after a short time, it gets stuck on one email and won't open any more at all. I also can't open any menus, but I can change inbox folders, but still only the original email is shown. It's really hard to troubleshoot and try to fix, as I can't get to any of the menus most of the time. This happens in safe mode as well. This is getting really irritating as I've been using Thunderbird for many years, and I'd like to fix it rather than find a new email program.

My email provider is terminating the existing email domain name, and replacing it with a new domain name. I want to retain all existing Thunderbird folders and emails for use with the new email. Example: username@q.com becomes username@myclk.com. (Yep, it's Centurylink.)

Can I change my existing Thunderbird account name and email and retain all existing folders and emails in the account? Some server settings would also be changed.

Or, do I need to set up a new account?

Thanks

I copy/paste emails a lot for my job, which needs to include from, sent, to, cc, bcc, and subject:

From: Sender <sender@email.com>; Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2026 at 11:27 AM EST To: John Doe <johndoe@email.com>; Cc: Jane Doe <janedoe@email.com>; Bcc: Subject: Email Subject

Currently, I am using the plugin ReplyWithHeader, which will produce this style of header on reply/forward, but is there a way to display this in the email body on view, without me having to reply/forward to produce the headers in the email body?

I hope I can explain this well: Recently, many recurring events from Google Contacts, namely birthdays and anniversaries, now appear in Google Calendar as invitations from "Unknown Organizer <unknownorganizer@calendar.google.com>" that I have accepted (but I have not.) These events keep triggering pop-up notifications. Those notifications do not respond to the Dismiss or Snooze buttons - they do nothing. I can dismiss the dialog box with the upper-right [X], but the pop up gain every time the calendar re-syncs. I try to edit the properties of the event, but the changes do not take. When I look at Google Calendar directly with my browser, these events do not show up, only the proper ones that are listed in my Birthdays calendar.

Why did this happen, and how can I fix this. The un-dismissable notifications make Thunderbird Calendar unusable. I find many similar (but not necessarily identical) complaints going back years, but no actual solutions.

Thunderbird 140.2.0esr Windows 10 22H2 Cardbook address book add-on 100.4

I am not able to send emails I have checked all my SMTA settings I am running version 147 and this just began on 1/26. I have turned off anti virus, run in safe mode and nothing works. I can send emails from my phone and using the provider webmail but not on my laptop. This is the msg I get

' Sending of the message failed. The message could not be sent because connecting to Outgoing server (SMTP) promail.ptd.net failed. The server may be unavailable or is refusing SMTP connections. Please verify that your Outgoing server (SMTP) settings are correct and try again.

In einer frischen Thunderbird-Installation (getestet mit 140 ESR und 147) funktioniert der manuelle globale Abruf per Shift + F5 nicht mehr für POP3-Konten.

Konkret: – POP3-Konten sind korrekt eingerichtet – „Beim Starten auf neue Nachrichten prüfen“ aktiv – „Alle X Minuten auf neue Nachrichten prüfen“ aktiv (z. B. 2880 Minuten) – Thunderbird ist online

Erwartetes Verhalten: Shift + F5 bzw. „Alle Konten abrufen“ prüft die POP3-Konten und holt neue Nachrichten ab (wie in früheren Versionen).

Tatsächliches Verhalten: – Shift + F5 bewirkt gar nichts – Kein Abruf, keine Fehlermeldung, keine Statusanzeige – Gleiches Verhalten bei „Alle Konten abrufen“

Wichtig: Der Abruf funktioniert sofort, wenn man per Rechtsklick gezielt ein einzelnes POP3-Konto → „Nachrichten abrufen“ auswählt.

Das zeigt, dass – Server erreichbar sind – Konten korrekt konfiguriert sind – das Problem ausschließlich den globalen manuellen Abruf betrifft

Zusätzlich scheint Shift + F5 inzwischen nur noch Konten zu berücksichtigen, die für den automatischen Abruf vorgesehen sind, wobei dies selbst bei gesetzten Haken nicht zuverlässig funktioniert. Dieses Verhalten ist weder dokumentiert noch für den Benutzer nachvollziehbar.

Fazit: Der bisher etablierte Workflow „manuell alle POP3-Konten abrufen“ ist in aktuellen Thunderbird-Versionen faktisch nicht mehr nutzbar. Für langjährige POP3-Nutzer ist das eine massive Verschlechterung der Bedienbarkeit.

Ist dieses Verhalten beabsichtigt (Designentscheidung) oder handelt es sich um eine Regression? Falls beabsichtigt: Warum gibt es keinen Ersatz für den früheren selektiven/globalen Abruf?

Two questions:

1- Is it possible to assign defaults for ICS import so that you don't have to go through the wizard?

The reason for this wish is question two...

2- Why does the "Next" button in the import wizard appear in a different place in each step? I have a whole bunch of separate ICS files to import due to a workflow issue, and importing them is like playing whack-a-mole. It'd be a huge improvement if the "Next" button could stay in a consistent place so that even if defaults can't be set up, you can just click-click-click in one place without having to dance around with the mouse :)

Thunderbird 147.0esr Email arrives. I open it It has the usual 'view this thread' link I click that link waterfox opens all of my home pages.....not the email I have disabled all add ons, in both thunderbird and waterfox....I have changed profile in waterfox & synced with firefox.

I just installed Thunderbird on an up to date Windows 11 PC and unchecked the box Automatically mark messages as read, but it keeps marking all of my messages as read.

Help please!