Thunderbird Community Forum

The problem with standard email storage methods is that they don't scale well. Mbox, the default in Thunderbird, creates large files, and if you backup changed files, every backup requires recopying a multi-gigabyte file, because it has changed when even one message was added or deleted. Maildir, the alternative, puts each message in a separate file. But file systems have a lot of overhead and their own limits. When you have hundreds of thousands of messages, especially on a PC, that clutters the computer's file system, and between the file cluster size and directory overhead, it wastes a lot of space and slows down other operations. Two bad options. And let's not be too snarky about what that company from Redmond does in its awful mail system, with a giant proprietary mail database file that sometimes gets corrupted...

It is obviously a lot to ask to create a new mail file format that scales better. It would not be standard and could break some things anyway, though in the long run it might be a good idea. But I have an idea that might work for Thunderbird. As it stands now, it is possible to create archive files by month or year. Then new mail doesn't require those to be re-copied. WHAT IF a "virtual mailbox" could be created that, instead of consisting of one Mbox file or one maildir directory, consisted of a set of Mbox files treated by the UI as one? Quick Filter would filter them all as one, unlike with archives, and you could scroll through them all and sort them and see threads, but they'd be stored as monthly or annual (or whatever) files, the way archives are. Sending and receiving would be unchanged, using the current folders, but periodically the folder could have the oldest ones moved out and still made part of a virtual folder.

There are some modest virtual folder capabilities now, but I don't see how to do this. Does it seem like a possibility with what's there, or a modest enhancement, or is that the kind of thing that would be a huge effort?

My Thunderbird client stop receiving email from the ATT account sometime late December. I don't check email every using Thunderbird client. I've since have created a new secure mail key using ATT site. This solved problem in prior years. I also change the server names from pop.att.yahoo.com to inbound.att.net and from smtp.att.yahoo.com to outbound.att.net and I still can't download email. I don't see any message in the bottom status bar/area.

Hello all again. Thanks for past help.

For the TB 115 I am using I have duplicate emails and I have loaded the add on from Eyal Rozenberg.

And this is going to be a super stupid question. How do I get it to run. I have it in the settings with the Flag blue on. I have looked at the default wrench settings.

But nothing happens. I see that I can add a short cut but cannot figure out how to do it.

Yes I have attempted to do online research but cannot see it. I am sure it is like 2 steps.

Sorry for my questions and thank you for your kind responses.

The reason is I have too many duplicate emails that I cannot even compact my email boxes. I have many years of emails on this tb 115.

thank you

I see this question was asked before (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1415951) but the thread is now archived and I don't think the concern of the poster was understood/answered.

Your Thunderbird profile contains all the credentials needed to "be you" by having full access to all linked email accounts. In order to protect these accounts a Private Password can be created. It prevents someone trying to use Thunderbird as you (using your profile) from seeing the passwords or establishing connections to the email servers.

The question I have (and I believe was being asked) is, does using a Private Password actually encrypt the account credentials, or does it just block someone when they're using the Thunderbird program? Asked another way, would a bad actor with access to the profile and access to appropriate sleuthing tools be able to recover the credentials--from the files alone--thus bypassing the private password of the Thunderbird program?

Just wondering if there was a way to change the behavior of Thunderbird. Currently, if I add a subfolder to an IMAP mail account, that folder will show up in the Unified Inbox. Yes, I know how to remove it from there but I'm getting tired of doing that each time I add a folder as I need to do it to multiple devices.

Thanks.

I have two problems with labels after changing computer. The first is that by entering the names of the labels, they are put in alphabetical order and not in the previous one. After years of use, it’s quite annoying...

The second is that in the grouping of messages by labels, they are doubled. Instead in the Inbox folder no. And this is more serious.

MacBook Pro M4 Pro, macOS 15.2 Thunderbird 128.6.0esr (64 bit)

Ho due problemi con le etichette dopo aver cambiato computer. Il primo è che inserendo i nomi delle etichette, queste vengono messe in ordine alfabetico e non in quello precedente. Dopo anni di utilizzo la cosa è piuttosto scocciante...

Il secondo è che nel raggruppamento dei messaggi per etichette, questi vengono raddoppiati. Invece nella cartella Posta in Arrivo no. E questo è più grave.

Delete used to not work as TB seemed to be forever 'compacting', now appears resolved.

THREADS, the display tacks a new email onto a recent thread-related or not. I did not ask for this and would like to remove it. Seems that since the People behind TB have now left us to the 'community' We are not impressed.

ALAN x@xx.org.uk [address edited for privacy]

Using windows 7 and have been using TB for well over 20 yrs. but very disappointing recently.

When I press "New Contact" in Address Book mode, so that I can enter a new contact, the address list (far left field) grays out , the new contact data entry field appears and I am able to enter data in this field. However, I am unable to save the new contact in the address book which I have selected! The only way that I can get the pane back to normal is by closing the Address Book tab. Jim

I ask a person to send me a signed email so that i can send them an encrypted email. How is this process supposed to work in thunderbird? I receive a signed email, what next? Clearly, thunderbird sees the signature but does not add the public key to the contact. This is in contradiction with [page] that states: The standard way of distributing a person's certificate is to send a digitally signed email. If you have received a signed email from your correspondent, click the email to view it. If Thunderbird considers the email's signature and the sender's certificate valid, it will automatically be imported and available when you attempt to encrypt an email to that correspondent using the S/MIME technology. If you don't have a signed email from your correspondent yet, you could ask them to send a digitally signed email to you.

Note that certificates issued by CAs may have a short validity period. Certificates are no longer usable after the validity period has expired. In that case your correspondent will have to obtain a new certificate. Once that happened they will be able to send you a new digitally signed email with a valid certificate.

Organizations that operate an LDAP server may configure their server to store S/MIME certificates. If an LDAP server is configured, Thunderbird may automatically query the LDAP server if it needs to obtain a S/MIME certificate.

To review the list of S/MIME certificates that you already have, you can use Thunderbird's Certificate Manager.

The certificate shows that it is valid, yet, clicking reply gives "key issues" which shows no key available. Similarly, if I sign an email with pgp key and send it, thunderbird sees that it is signed but tells me that i need to obtain public pgp key. So it seems that signatures and encryption are completely unusable.

Is there any way to open just one particular message that is in the Thunderbird inbox as plain text, without changing the setting for all messages?

I've read solutions that say to: Go to the "View" menu at the top of the Thunderbird window; Choose "Message Body As" > "Plain Text".

If I follow those instructions, then all subsequent messages that I open are also displayed as plain text, until I change that option back. That's not the solution I'm hoping for.

I've also read that I can right-click a message in the inbox ... Select "View" from the context menu; Choose "Message Body As" > "Plain Text".

but I have no "View" option in the context menu.

When I get a message from a sender which I suspect might be a scam, it would be very helpful from a security standpoint to be able to easily open just that one suspicious message as plain text.

Is there any way to do this? I've also looked for an add-on which might enable me to do this, but couldn't find one.

Any suggestions appreciated, thanks!

Hello,

Thunderbird Version 128.6.0 Security: 13 vulnerabilities found. Highest value 8.8 (Severe) Details: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/search/results?form_type=Advanced&results_type=overview&search_type=all&cpe_version=cpe%3A%2F%3AMozilla%3AThunderbird%3A128.6.0

Regards, Werner Bulich

In transferring my profile from PC to laptop, something went wrong and I lost all of my local folders, with years of emails in them. I have searched all parts of the Thunderbird folder under Roaming, and have been unable to find the folders.

The weird thing is that when I do a search for a particular subject or email that I know was in one of the local folders, the search still gives results showing the email headings. It will, however, not display the results as a list or open any of the emails.

The fact that the folders and emails appear in the search leads me to believe that they are still somewhere on my PC.

Does anyone have any advice on where they might be or how to find them?

Since yesterday Thunderbird keeps crasing. I don't even have time to go see if an update was added. It crashes within a few seconds all the time. Any ways to fix it?

Ich habe einen neuen PC. Ich meine daß ich alle Daten richtig eingegeben habe, trotzdem kann ich mich bei Thunderbird nicht anmelden. Woran kann das liegen? Danke für einen Hinweis

A few weeks ago after an automatic update I ended up having Thunderbird version 131.0.1 installed, I have no idea how this happened. On opening I get a message telling me I shouldn't be using a beta version and that I should revert to the latest general release version (128.4)

Today when I had some free time I downloaded 128.4 and installed it. On opening it it says that I can't use a profile file from a later version with the earlier version. Is there a way to recover from this WITHOUT having to set up the whole profile again from scratch.

Meanwhile I have done a system restore so I am back with 131.0.1 It has not given me any problems so far. Is there a new general release version imminent that will get me back on track?

I would appreciate any help I am not a computer expert, just a user, and find Thunderbird a very good email client.

David Gould

I keep getting errors that look similar the the following, they occur daily on different accounts: ... Alert from account sos9@sostx.com: i.a5OPHsR InvalidParameter id" i.a5OPHsR_CFR_2 ... As far as I can tell my emails are operating normally except for these error messages.

I'm running 115.10.1 (64-bit)

Lately I've noticed that e-mails aren't always coming through in Thunderbird.

They aren't in the junk folder either; but when I log in to outlook webmail - I have an outlook.com address - I find that some (but not all) of the messages have come through, either into the inbox or junk folders.

Any suggestions?

Hi folks, for some months now it has been taking several minutes to download my mails from my provider Netcologne to my Thunderbird mail client. My version: 128.6.0esr (64-bit) OS Windows 10 home 22H2 Previous activities: 1. fault report to provider Netcologne, reply: No error detectable 2. installation of mail client ‘eM Client’. Mails are downloaded in a few seconds, just like a few months ago with Thunderbird mail client.

Something is wrong with the Thunderbird mail client. Please help me, I am an enthusiastic fan of Thunderbird and would like to stay that way. Best regards Friedrich Berger