Thunderbird Community Forum

Environment:

Thunderbird: 153.0.2esr (64-bit) Operating system: Windows Occurs with multiple email accounts Reproduced on two different computers running the same Thunderbird version

Description:

After updating Thunderbird to version 153.0.2esr, released on 4 August 2026, emails can no longer be dragged and dropped from Thunderbird to the Windows Desktop or any folder in Windows Explorer.

The problem occurs with all tested email accounts and folders. It has been reproduced independently on two different Windows computers using the same Thunderbird version.

Saving an email manually with Ctrl+S works correctly and creates the .eml file. Normal drag-and-drop between folders in Windows Explorer also works. Only dragging an email from Thunderbird to Windows Explorer fails.

The issue also appears to affect third-party applications that use Thunderbird to create or send emails automatically.

Steps to reproduce:

Open Thunderbird 153.0.2esr on Windows. Select an email in any account or folder. Drag the email to the Desktop or another folder in Windows Explorer. Release the mouse button.

Actual result:

The email is not copied or saved to the selected Windows folder.

Expected result:

Thunderbird should export the email as an .eml file in the selected folder.

Additional information:

Ctrl+S successfully saves the same email. The issue affects every tested email account. Thunderbird extensions were disabled, but the problem remained. Thunderbird Troubleshoot Mode did not resolve the issue. Restarting Thunderbird, Windows Explorer and Windows did not resolve it. Thunderbird and Windows Explorer are not running with different elevation levels. The problem was reproduced on a second computer after installing the same Thunderbird version. No relevant error is shown in Thunderbird’s Error Console when the drag-and-drop operation fails. The issue was not present before the recent Thunderbird update.

This appears to be a regression in Thunderbird 153.0.2esr affecting email export through drag-and-drop and possibly Thunderbird’s integration with external applications.

In Thunderbird, how can I stop text in the previous emails in a string turning blue?

I have looked everywhere in Settings where colour is mentioned and everything is set to black text on a white background. Nothing is set to blue.

I do not want to see blue text anywhere.

Please advise.

My folders are in disarray and it is cutting into my productivity to file emails. I have tried but it in settings but it doesn't work. Many are in alpha order but there are 2 different two different sections of the same name, and some odd files end up in an alphabetized section.

For instance there are 2 different ZBV sections with other stray folders in the same area that should be in there own alpha folder area. It's a mess to find the right folder. I have to scroll up and own and look for the folder I need to file in. I would be happy to donate, and i have in the past, but I really need this to get fixed. Please, please, please...

My Thunderbird install updated from 140.13.0esr to 153.0.2esr yesterday and now I can no longer drag and drop any attachment from an email to any folder on my computer. I simply get an error message window with a title of "Error Moving File or Folder" with "Unspecified error" text. See image attachment.

I've tried a variety of folders, including Downloads, Documents, Pictures and other folders on local and external storage devices.

I can save the attachments using the Save All button, or by right-clicking a file and choosing Save As, but not by dragging and dropping as I have done so for years.

I have checked if Thunderbird is running in admin mode, which it is not, but have tested it both ways with the same problem occurring. I have also run Thunderbird in Troubleshoot mode, and the same thing occurs. I tried clearing the startup cache from the troubleshooting page with no change. Restarting the PC did not resolve the issue, and disabling my anti-virus(Avast) also did not make a difference to the issue.

Hello,

Tbird 153.0 (64-bit) on Windows using the Owl extension for microsoft authentication.

Everything was working fine till about 1 week ago. Apparently Cisco changed something and now I'm getting a TBird browser prompt that our Multi-factor authentication(MFA) DUO needs 'local access'. This is coming up in the 'captive browser' (I believe that is the terminology). This is the message:

Duo Desktop needs permission to access your local network.

Duo uses local network access to communicate with Duo Desktop. When prompted by your browser, please allow this permission.

I never really get a prompt to respond to this in Firefox or any other browser.

If I continue I'm dead in my tracks with this (also in the internal captive browser):

Allow local network access

Duo uses local network access to communicate with Duo Desktop

   Click the site information icon left of the web address in your browser.
   Click the toggle next to Local network access to allow access.
   The page should refresh automatically and allow you to continue.

This link is provided which isn't really helping:

https://help.duo.com/s/article/9470

Does this sound familiar? Can TBird use firefox instead of it's captive browser or allow the captive browser local access?

Thanks in advance!

Ed Mazurek Cisco Systems

I found a bug in Thunderbird 153.0.2esr version that wasn't a problem in previous versions. When I drag an email from Thunderbird into a folder in Windows File Explorer (Windows 10 PC), when I drop the email into the folder, I get an error box titled :Error Moving File or Folder", with the contents with a large red X and text "Unspecified error".

The workaround is to right-click the selected email(s) and choose "Save As...".

Anybody else here able to reproduce this and confirm it is a bug?

Recently updated to ESR Meadow.

Now when I try to save attachment from an email by dragging and dropping to desktop, Windows pops up "Error Moving File or Folder - Unspecified error" and the operation fails.

And when I try to save attachment from an email by right click > open > Save dialog, the save filename is always "nsmail" but with the original file extension. E.g. a jpg attachment would come up as "nsmail.jpg", and a txt file attachment would come up as nsmail.txt. It does then save it, but why lose the filename?

It used to preserve the attachment filename, I'm sure! And drag and drop to desktop was such a convenient feature!

I have tried in Troubleshoot mode and behaviour is the same. I have tried in Windows Safe mode and behaviour for Save is the same; but drag and drop is completely disabled there (when I drag it, it shows a circle with line through icon).

Is it just me?

As of today, Thunderbird will not make contact with my servers and won't download emails. i had been having some issues with Thunderbird not sending emails last week. Plus, Firefox won't connect with my internet provider's website so I cannot access emails thru webmail. Firefox either times out or says connection could not be made. Could there be an issue within account settings?

Importing CSV address books does not work properly. The resulting folder cannot be accessed by emails to be sent.

The imported Address Lists cannot be used in an email as a list. The error message is that the address is not a valid email address. However, if a new Address List is created with the contents of the imported file manually copied, then it can be used as an email address.

I also found that clicking on an individual address in the imported csv, will open the individual email address.

So the addresses are valid but the list is corrupted.

I was a satisfied user of the Thunderbird e-mail client. I especially enjoyed the ability to toggle into darkmode when browsing and reading my e-mail. The previous toggle I used to activate that feature is missing, and I cannot locate a work around to turn it back on. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

I had to update my server settings in Thunderbird since I changed my email hosting provider. I had no idea I would lose all my emails and folders I created. Is there any way to get these recovered?

I have three separate Yahoo email accounts. I set up Thunderbird to link to each Yahoo email account separately. It worked fine for a year or more. On 5/25/26 one of the three Thunderbird email accounts stopped downloading emails from Yahoo. I could see at the bottom bar Thunderbird indicating that is was downloading 1 of XX emails, but never actually downloads them. There is no error message. I checked the Yahoo email account to verify the number of emails I am missing from Thunderbird and the number is correct. I can see the emails in Yahoo. I'm the only person using Thunderbird, so no changes have been made to previous settings for retrieval. I confirmed Security and server settings for Thunderbird in and out going emails, and Yahoo are correct. I tested the connection in Thunderbird, and the connection is successful. I tried to send an email from the Thunderbird account having issues, and the email was sent and received by the recipient. The recipient replied, and Yahoo received the email, but failed to download it to Thunderbird...along with all the other emails since 5/25/26. I unlinked the account and reestablished the link between Yahoo and Thunderbird, and still not fixed. I tried restarting the computer, with no change. I tried to send an email from Thunderbird to one of the other Thunderbird emails and it was sent and received. I made changes to Thunderbird to force the download of emails, and it still wouldn't do it. I turned off my antivirus, closed Thunderbird, and restarted it, and that didn't change anything. The capacity of emails on the email in question only has 739 emails, so it's not over the limit and I have plenty of storage capacity. Thunderbird is set to save emails, Cookies and cache were cleared, no change. I ran the folder repair feature in Thunderbird, but there was no change. I compared all the settings between the other Thunderbird emails that are working against the one that isn't, and they are all the same. There was a suggestion to close out of Thunderbird and delete the "Global-message-db.sqite" file from the Thunderbird profile in case it was corrupted, and it would recreate this file when Thunderbird was restarted. The file was recreated, but it didn't fix the problem. There was mention that a suspicious email in Yahoo might be blocked by Thunderbird, so I placed various emails in the spam folder, and it didn't work. I did find one email in the Yahoo spam folder that was dated before 5/25/26 and moved it to the Yahoo inbox. Lo and behold, that one email downloaded to Thunderbird. So there is something within Thunderbird preventing emails from downloading after 5/25/26. I've read many people complain about similar download failures with no solid fix. Someone mentioned it fixed itself on a day, but then stopped again days later. Someone else mentioned Yahoo changed its password protocol to transfer emails, but that doesn't make sense since the other two are still downloading based on the "old" password protocol. I'm at wits' end. Thanks for reading all of this. I hope someone has a solution.

Hello! I'm having a problem where a specific tag keeps un-applying itself. I have a number of filters that look for specific words in emails, and tag them accordingly -- all of my other filters are working just fine, but one specific one has decided to stop working. It has exactly the same settings as the other ones, and when I manually run the filter, it correctly applies the right tag.

But, minutes later, the tag will un-apply itself, and I cannot figure out why. For some reason, an older message is staying correctly tagged with that filter, but newer ones un-apply the tag. This same filter and tag used to work just fine. Other tags on emails from the same source work fine, too.

At one time, I was able to access my email with Thunderbird. Then Thunderbird stopped working, and I didn't have time to research why. Monday, I bought a new Macbook. After installation, Thunderbird says "account settings found." Then it asks for a password. My password no longer works. Instead, I get a message: "Authentication failed. Unable to log in at server. Probably wrong configuration, username or password." What, if anything, can I do?

No new messages have downloaded since July 31. I am very disappointed as there are several things I need to access and no way of getting support. I feel like I keep trying to email and ask questions but by using my Gmail and not my current WB for me.com email it is confused and I have been looking on Mozilla support for similar questions, but seem very overwhelmed and have tried a few of them and restarted it several times but not resolving the issue. Can someone please help and if possible give me a call <redacted>. I’m not sure how I’ll get the answer if any from this site but hopeful that it is sooner than later because I really need to get it done today.

I have 3 email accounts which i unified. when log in I get prompted to enter password for all three accounts which I do, then I get prompted again to enter the password to all Password Manager to save my passwords which I do not want and therefore I uncheck it for all three; I then get prompted again for all three which I enter password, then I get imap login error on my main account which I click cancel a few times before it goes away,

I use Thunderbird portable. How do I fix this issue. it should be that one enters the password for each account once not three to four times. I do not want to use Password Manager to Save my accounts.

Also if ever I have to change password how do I do that? thank for your help.

I have the portable version, download from portable apps website.

We are facing issues with Thunderbird mail application.

Incoming emails are not being received in Thunderbird. Thunderbird is running very slowly and frequently becomes unresponsive. Sending and receiving emails is taking a long time. We have already restarted the application and system, but the issue still persists.

Kindly check the mail server settings and Thunderbird configuration from your end and advise on the necessary action to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

Your prompt support will be highly appreciated.