Thunderbird Community Forum

Can I use Thunderbird to build an incremental local backup/archive of all messages transiting (incoming/outgoing) a webmail account ?

Any idea how to achieve this ?

My problem is:

• A POP3 account will miss all folders except the Inbox. (It's a pity that POP4 has not gained traction yet.)
• An IMAP account creates a mirror, not a backup. Remote deletions in the webmail account must not delete messages from my backup and vice versa.

detailed requirements:

• one-way sync only, since a local backup/archive must be built, not a mirror (two-way synchronization):
• Remote deletions must not cause local deletions (otherwise it would be a mirror, not an archive/backup).
• Local move/delete operations must not be reflected back to the mail server.
• Read‐only access to the mail server: no moves, deletes or flags remotely.
• All messages in all folders must be included in the backup: Inbox, Sent, custom folders, etc. Since POP3 can only back up the Inbox, I will probably have to settle for IMAP to include all folders.
• No duplicates: Messages must not be stored locally more than once.
• Messages must be stored as full offline copies locally (not just headers).

Remove the thunderbird request for donation so I can access my email. I have donated to thunderbird today. Don't send me an email because I cannot access my email because your request covers the whole screen. Please call me at <redacted>.

I am able to style tasks that are either completed/overdue/inprogress in userChrome.css . But so far I have not found a way to style canceled tasks.

Can someone help me ?

I'm lost about how to get back into the program. I already had Thunderbird and tried to re-install it. After that it asked for my name and e-mail address & password. I forgot the password.

Hello, I want to delete all incoming gmail messages. I have set up a filter but instead of deleting them it puts them in the Trash folder.

Is this the expected behaviour?

I have both a "Sent" and "Sent Mail" folder; both have slightly different URLs when I check Properties ("Sent" folder shows imap://"myname"1%40gmail.com@imap.gmail.com/Sent and "Sent Mail" folder shows imap://"myname"1%40gmail.com@imap.gmail.com/%5BGmail%5D/Sent%20Mail). I don't need both of them; which one can I delete...and HOW do I delete it? Right-click doesn't have "delete" option.

All of a sudden my account will not open automatically?...asks me for my password?...I have no idea what that is...if you answer via email I cannot open it to see your answer..

When I tried to log in to my Google Email account, the authorization pop-up window that appeared was completely blank. I have tried operations such as re-logging in, but it still didn't work.

I received a request for donations for the 100th time. I have donated to the group more than once, and coincidentally, my system crashed and prompted me to make another donation. We need a permanent fix to stop the donation requests and get Thunderbird functioning properly.

Unknown to me Microsoft ditched POP3 recently. I have a large 22gb Outlook .pst file with important historical data for volunteer run non-profits. Using Outlook for 15 years or more. Outlook 2021 that was working stopped suddenly and now only uses IMAP. IMAP and 22gb chokes and is unnecessary as synchronisation not required or desired -or the expense of Microsoft Onedrive excess storage fees.

Can Thunderbird import this large .PST and can it connect to Telus in some way like it used to and that does not invoke IMAP? In other words everything local? Thanks!

I´ve used Gmail through Thunderbird for many years now, mainly because I prefer your treestructure. After changing laptop I discovered that a new map had entered the tree, which turned out to be Gmail´s map "Important" (Viktigt in Swedish). Important stores ALL incoming mail, now over 3 700! There are "only" under 400 in the Incoming map. If I erase a mail from Important it will also be erased from the Incoming map, and vice versa. Important should be for me to decide if a mail should be temporarely stowed there. Can you tell how to clean out only the Important? Best regards and thanks

I'm a long time user of TB. However, the installation I have now is fairly new on a Win 11 computer. I have attached a screen shot showing my server settings where it clearly shows that TB is not to download any messages on it's own.

I have an email address (cox.com) that was taken over by Yahoo some year and half ago. I don't remember this problem occurring on my Win 10 computer.

Why is Thunderbird downloading messages when it's not supposed to?

Thank you.