Thunderbird Community Forum

Trying to set up Thunderbird on new computer. I do NOT want to import anything but address book from old computer. I use Thunderbird to Gmail since I also have an Android phone and want to access emails with Thunderbird and Gmail. I downloaded the Thunderbird installer, but I cannot log into Gmail when the Thunderbird setup asks me to EVEN THOUGH I know I am using the correct Gmail password, it is rejected as incorrect. Do I need to set up a whole new Gmail account? I MUST use the same email address, and I doubt Google will allow me to set up a new account with that address.

Please help.

1. C: drive full - Note refer word Thunderbird name below as "TB" 2. username\appdata\local\Thunderbird taking 635+ MBs Per online instructions, to move Local folder pointer: a. copied user\appdata\local\thunderbird\profiles\profiles* to D: b. updated TB "tools\account settings\Local Folders" to point to D: location c. Shut down TB and restarted d. Local folder has all email files corrupted so shutdown TB e. deleted appdata\local\Thunderbird completely f. Restored appdata\local\thunderbird from backup prior to chg g. started TB and Local folder still corrupted MY GUESS something outside that TB directory has been changed. I still have a backup of C: available prior to my changes Need Help - have MANY saved emails in Local folder Thanks in advance floyd6789@att.net

I cannot access my "Trash" folder in my email. I get the "thunderbird is not responding". I've tried over a dozen times closing the program, and rebooting multiple of times. My wife's thunderbird email account is normal.

I created two groups under News, it is now in the Left Tab area Account listing, now I can't delete both of the news groups and their Trash folders from the tab listing. There is no "DELETE FUNCTION" on either news group. How do I delete these two? Nothing is setup, so I should be able to delete those in the listing.

I can receive emails with Thunderbird, but cannot send emails. I tried the troubleshoot function, but do not understand enough to use it. Maybe I could uninstall Thunderbird, and then re-install it. Would I loose all my addresses and stored emails?

Thanks much, Lori Jirak

For some reason, I am getting message that the Certificate for server is not valid (etc.). I can not get or send my emails as of this morning. Is there something I can do to resolve this issue?

Not sure there is anyone answering questions in this forum now. Maybe Thunderbird doesn't exist now? I have used it for years but can't get a response from anyone on what my problem is. Keep getting message the the connection to sever timed out. Before that the message was the certificate wasn't valid for the server. Can anyone help??

HELP. About a week ago my Thunderbird email began giving me "Not responding" email messages and, no matter what I did, it would shut down and then reboot, reloading the 250 or so messages on the server. I finally tried UNINSTALLING and and discovered that that action also uninstalled my email program on my Iphone. I REINSTALLED and all my messages came back on my laptop and THEN SOME. I currently have 23,000 messages in my INBOX, up to maybe one hundred copies of the same message over and over and over and over...Every time I tried to highlight a message and delete it, I'd get a "not responding" notice then it would reload the same messages. PLEASE, I've had Thunderbird for more than 10 years and have even been able to donate a small amount from time to time but will have to leave if this problem can't be solved. I use email for my business and send and receive more than 250 emails a day. I want ALL the email in my inbox deleted but still retain the emails stored and all my contacts list. I still receive emails on my micheledrier@att.net address and have begun using an alternative, mjdrier@gmail.com PLEASE, SOMEONE OUT THERE...I'm desperate... Thank you, Michele Drier

My Thunderbird had an automatic upgrade this week to 128.5.1esr 32Bit. Since then, I have not been able to pull down email for any of my accounts. When attempting to pull email from remote servers, the Thunderbird status message is "Checking server capabilities ....". This has gone for hours with no change, or the attempt just stops with no status update and no emails. This occurs regardless of VPN usage. What happened and how do I fix this ?!?!?

A person might become dissatisfied and frustrated with Thunderbird because some functions do not work as one might expect without modification and because the program is more complex (and customizable) than other e-mail apps. When I first tried using Thunderbird, I gave up on it quickly. Then I returned, learned more about how it works, and am now very satisfied with it.

I am not an expert, but I learned some things that may be useful to other people.

Please correct any inaccurate information and add to incomplete information.

My experience was with Thunderbird 128 on a Macintosh computer.

I suggest that you make these changes in the order in which they appear here.

MESSAGE FORMAT

Thunderbird uses an mbox format (there is more than one mbox format) for storing messages by default. It can also use the maildir (eml) format. Eml is better, at least in some ways. To use the eml format, one must change a setting before setting up accounts. The setting is in Thunderbird settings - General at the bottom. It is “Message Store Type for new accounts”. You may want to set it to “File per message (maildir)”.

A support article from 2019 warns users about this format: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/maildir-thunderbird

But some users report that it was working well as early as 2016: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/thunderbird-from-mbox-to-maildir.389599/

As of December 2024, there is no warning within Thunderbird. This option is presented as a standard feature. I do not know if using the format causes any problems. A list of known bugs is here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?classification=Client%20Software&classification=Components&f1=short_desc&f2=OP&f3=short_desc&o1=nowordssubstr&o3=anywordssubstr&product=MailNews%20Core&product=Thunderbird&resolution=---&short_desc=maildir&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr

If you set up accounts before making this change, then you will want to create a new profile and make the change there before setting up accounts. The process for creating a new profile starts with Help - Troubleshooting information - about:profiles.

I have not been able to get messages in local folders stored in the maildir/eml format. I do not know if that is possible. Does anyone know if it is?

THREADED CONVERSATIONS

Thunderbird threads conversations by default. Many people don’t want threaded conversation. There are several things one can do to prevent and change threaded conversations.

First, go to Settings - General - Config Editor. Search for mailnews.default_view_flags and change the setting to 0. This setting should change the default view.

If threaded conversations do appear, there are at least two ways to change them to unthreaded.

1) View - Sort by - Unthreaded affects the current message list.

2) Copy your preferred message list settings from one list to another. At the far right of the column headers in every message list, there is a button to “Select columns to display”. Click on it. At the bottom of the list that appears, there is a command to “Apply current view to …” If you have folders with “children” folders, you can apply your preference of no threads to the parent and the children in one step.

Official documentation on threading is here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/message-threading-thunderbird

SET UP ACCOUNTS

I have included this step mostly so that you can see what I suggest that you do before and after setting up accounts.

EXCHANGE/OFFICE 365/MICROSOFT 365 ACCOUNTS

If you have an Exchange/Office 365/Microsoft 365 account, Thunderbird will set it up as an IMAP account. If you want to use it as an Exchange account, you need an add-on. “OWL for Exchange” is the most popular one. There is at least one other add-on that does the same things. I do not know how well they work. I chose not to install “OWL for Exchange” because it seemed to require more access than I was comfortable granting.

When you use an Exchange account as an IMAP account, you do not have to specify a location for sent messages. They will be saved in the “Sent Items” folder, not the “Sent“ folder. If you specify a folder in account settings - Copies & Folders, you will have duplicates.

Some people that said that there are problems with these different sent mail folders because of how Apple Mail handles them, at least on the iPhone. But Apple seems to handle these accounts properly as Exchange/Office 365/ Microsoft 365 accounts on both the iPhone and the Mac, and it seems to use the proper folders. So I suspect that the issue has to do with Thunderbird setting up these accounts as IMAP accounts.

To ensure that all e-mail apps that you use to access your Exchange account store deleted messages in the same place, I think you want to go to account settings, server settings, and have deleted messages saved in “Deleted Items”.

Native support for Exchange mail functions (only mail) is under development. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Exchange

IMPORT LOCAL FOLDERS

You may have messages stored in local folders in another e-mail app. The easiest way to get them into Thunderbird is 1) to export them in mbox format (or just copy the mbox folders if the messages are already stored in an mbox format) and 2) put the mbox folders (without file extensions and index files) into the folder (directory) Profiles/[your profile]/Mail/Local Folders.

On the Macintosh, the Profiles folder is in ~/Library/Thunderbird.

“~” indicates the user, as opposed to the system. So the full path is: Macintosh HD/Users/[your computer account name]/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/[your profile]/Mail/Local Folders.

MESSAGE LIST WINDOW SETTINGS

Once you have your columns set as you want them, you can use the next-to-last option in “Select columns to display” to copy your settings to other message list windows.

To set the default sort column and sort order, use the configuration editor (Settings - General - Config Editor …”.) To get the sort order typical of e-mail apps, descending by date, set mailnews.default_sort_type to 18 (date) and mailnews.default_sort_order to 2.

More information about sorting options is here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1432391

PREFERRED FONTS

To set your preferred fonts, you probably must set them in two or three places. One of them is easy to miss.

Go to Settings - General - Language & Appearance. Set your preferences for “Fonts & Colors” there.

Then click on “Advanced …”. In the dialog window that appears next, you probably have to set your preferences in two places: under your main writing system, e.g., “Latin” and under “Other Writing Systems”.

COMPOSE WINDOW

The header layout in the compose window has wasted space and crunched headings that annoyed me. If these things annoy you, learn how to correct it here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1477069

I set the left margin to -60px.

DASHED LINES BETWEEN MESSAGE AND SIGNATURE

You can remove these dashed lines by going to the configuration editor (Settings - General - Config Editor …”) and setting mail.identity.default.suppress_signature_separator to true.

WORD WRAP IN THE COMPOSE WINDOW

To get better word wrapping in the compose window, use the configuration editor to set mailnews.wraplength to 0. This may be useful only for plain-text messages. I don’t know.

Using the Edit - Rewrap command (with a shortcut) is useful sometimes too.

SEND PROGRESS INDICATOR WINDOW

The window that pops up after you give a command to send a message may annoy you. You can disable it using the configuration editor (Settings - General - Config Editor) by setting mailnews.show_send_progress to false.

The compose window will still remain visible until the message is sent. There is a progress indicator at the bottom of that window that makes the pop-up window redundant.

You can set Thunderbird to “send in the background” so that the compose window disappears after the “send” command. Do this by setting mailnews.sendInBackground to true and offline.send.unsent_messages to 1. There are some trade-offs in this approach. See here for more information: https://www.summet.com/blog/2015/11/16/making-thunderbird-send-messages-in-the-background-like-outlook/

I have decided not to use this approach because it puts a message in the outbox of the Local Folders account and never seems to send it unless I give it the File - Send Unsent Messages command.

Does someone know how to have messages sent in the background but immediately and without intervention?

NOT ALL IMAP FOLDERS APPEAR

Which IMAP folders appear in an account depends on 1) whether or not the account is set to show all folders or only subscribed folders, and 2) which folders are subscribed to.

The account-level setting for showing all or only subscribed folders is under account settings: Server Settings - Advanced.

If you set Thunderbird to show only subscribed folders, then right-click on each account name in the folder pane, select “Subscribe …”, and check the folders that you want to subscribe to. You will have to check this setting every time you create a new IMAP folder.

GLOBAL SEARCH

Some people are frustrated by global search and conclude quickly that it does not work. In my limited experience, it works fine. But one must understand that searching is set on a folder-by-folder basis. Right-click on a folder, select “Properties”, and make sure that the folders you want to search are set to be searched. I believe that “Trash” is not set to be searched by default.

I opened Thunderbird and all my emails and email accounts are gone. It wants me to set up all over again. There is nothing there but a screen that says set up your email account with user name and password.

Thunderbird no longer sends emails from my standard account. Receiving continues to work without any problems. The provider is Vodafone with the .kabelmail.de address Screenshots show the settings. Otherwise these always worked. I've already set the TLS version to 1 in Thunderbird, without success.

The error message can be seen in German on the other screenshot and means in English:

"Failed to send message. Error sending message. The mail server responded: spam id=155817::1723829084-40E2144E-91888C35/29/1527808. Please check the message and try again."

You have recently released version Thunderbird 128.1.1 in which you have changed the Compact View so that it is effectively no longer a Compact View, because the spaces have been increased between the Folders in the sidebar folder pane. I have been using Thunderbird for a couple of months and really liked the Compact View but now it has been spoiled. I don't understand why it was necessary to change this, and would be grateful if you would please revert the Compact View to how it appeared in version 115

Kind regards

Brian Lawrence