Thunderbird Community Forum

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

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 :)

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!

How can I retrieve emails I deleted by selecting wrong parameters in the wrong area. I was in Thunderbird > Acct Settings > Synchronization & Storage and saw "Disk Space" settings. Without thinking I selected --> O ... Delete messages more than [ xxx ] [ ^v ] days old and I changed the number to... [ 90 ] days old. Like an idiot, I for some reason thought I was dealing with messages in "Trash"... go figure. So of course I then noticed in my email Accounts... all messages older than 90 days were removed from all of my folders I had set-up. Many of the folders are now blank, empty of emails that I had moved into the separate folders set-up for different information. I've explored tons of solution responses in "Support" but haven't found a solution to my problem. I really need my older emails back... please help! , Ron.

I tried unticking enable and it did NOT work. Help! I want the stupid filter gone. I have struggled for two years with the junk filter which does not work right. I have done shift J. The filter does NOT learn. A week aog, I saw that I could uncheck enable and that was supposed to stop the filter. That also did NOT work.

Today, an email I forwarded to myself from another platform went in junk. I never wanted any junk filter. It has been nothing but trouble and now I can't even disable it.

No messages show up in the inbox. If I run Thunderbird in troubleshot mode all the messages in the inbox show up. I suspect it might be something regarding filtering, but I do not know how to turn filtering off. Help.

In Windows and other applications when I hit space it moves the cursor or text I have the cursor in front of to the right a certain number of spaces. If I subsequently hit backspace it moves the cursor or text I have the cursor in front of back the same amount of spaces.

This is not how Thunderbird operates, if I tab the cursor or text I have the cursor in front of does move to the right 2 spaces, but when I hit backspace the cursor or text I have the cursor in front of moves back a single space at a time.

1) Is there a setting that I can change to have backspace move the cursor or text I have the cursor in front of the same distance back as the initial "tab" moved it to the right?

2) Can I adjust the number of space "tab" jumps from 2 to say, 4?

Thanks

When I am working from home, on my home network, and using a VPN, (Windows 11) whenever I receive new messages, the app becomes completely frozen. That is, if the app is in the background and I receive an email "bing bong" notification, I can go to the app, but I can not click on anything. Nothing responds. I cannot change tabs, select a message, move the window, or even use the close box to quit the application. I must force quit via the Windows tray icon. If I open the application and it immediately checks for messages and gets new messages, also I can not interact with any on-screen window or element. I must force quit. Then, after force quitting, I reopen again, and get no new messages, the previously new messages I can click on and read. So at no time can I get messages, and continue using the app. I also had a draft email in progress, and received new messages, and then the draft message was non interactive. When I tried to quit the app, I saw a popup message about saving the draft, but also could not click on it. This problem does not happen at work on my internal network and no VPN. Our email is all POP based (yes you read that right, all POP no IMAP), FWIW.

Today - 26/01/2026 - Thunderbird keeps crashing for no reason. I receive a dialogue box to either quit or start Thunderbird again and to add to a crash report. I have been doing this all morning - no response. I have gone onto Mozilla Google search to see if there is a problem - nothing. I have shut down and re-started the computer - nothing happens. Please can you respond and maybe give me a customer service 'live' person who can talk me through this. I have used Thunderbird for over 15 years, but this is defeating me. I am in my late 70's and cannot cope with the way your Community site works. Thank you for your help. Hope to hear from you soonest.

When synchronizing via CalDAV with T-Online, Thunderbird almost always prompts for a password, even though all data is saved. T-online says, this ist problem from thunderbird.

How does one export one's private key (secret key) using OpenPGP in Thunderbird in Windows 10?

In this directory... C:\Users\meow\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\yy677g4j.default-release\

I find these files... (I have obfuscated some of the file names) secring.gpg pubring.gpg 0xBBBBBBBBBBBBBB_rev.asc 0xAAAAAAAAAAAAAA_rev.asc 0xCCCCCCCCCCCCC_rev.asc

It seems that the secring.gpg file would contain 3 private keys, corresponding to the 3 public keys shown. I would like to ask how can I create a file containing the private key which corresponds to the "CCCCC..." public key but NOT containing the private key for any other key pair.

Thunderbird's OpenPGP menu allows me to easily export the public key, but does not seem to provide any mechanism for exporting my private key.

Thanks for your advice! ~uxfail

I operate a number of IMAP email accounts on Thunderbird. With just one, a load of my emails from my inbox end up in my deleted folder and I have to move them back again. I have set my deletion settings so that, if I delete an email, it is permanently deleted, so none of the emails I have deleted are in my deleted box. But it is still full up with emails from my inbox I don't want deleted. Any ideas how I fix this?

I recently updated the computers at my shop. My shop uses an older program Mitchell 1 to process and organize invoices. I have used Thunderbird to email invoice pdfs for the longest time but now after updating I get “ERROR SENDING EMAIL. MAPI RETURNED -2147467259” it’s my understanding MAPI is outdated but I figured Thunderbird would still support this function.