right click the sent folder, select properties. What size on disk is the folder?

Hi Matt,

It is 2.7MB, 72 messages. It reports 13% use.

There is a [ Repair Folder ] button. Would that help?

Thanks for your support!

Bob

right click and compact. That will probably fix the issue.

I've tried that Matt. I hope soon respond that it worked!

Opps! Just crashed, same behavior as originally posted. It timed out after 60 seconds. As soon as the crash report popped up I was offered "Retry". It then went immediately and showed up in the Sent Mail folder.

Matt, saving sent mail has not crashed. It takes 15-20 seconds to save to the Sent Mail folder but not long enough to time out as it was doing before.

I deselected the setting in Properties, "Select this folder for offline use". I never have occasion to use Thunderbird offline. If there is an reason why I should NOT deselect this box, please let me know. I'm hoping this will speed up the process.

Thanks for your support.

Ok, I tried the easy solution. It apparently did not work. Next option is to try creating an exclusion in your anti virus program for the Thunderbird profile folder.

I think what is happening is you anti virus program (what is it anyway?) is trying to scan the mail storage file at the same time as Thunderbird accesses it and it is just not working. Compacting made the file much smaller, and therefore quicker to scan, but obviously not small enough for your anti virus.

I'm using Symantec End Point Detection. I've created a screen shot of the complaints it made when I opened it to remind me of the name and uploaded it.

I'm going to go ahead and let Symantec [ fix all ] and I'll let you know if that made any difference.

All Symantec problems fixed OK. I can't figure out what to make an exception to and don't want to remove all protections from email traffic. I'll wait to hear from you, Matt.

Symantec WILL in dues course result in the total loss of your inbox, and they will not be apologetic about it either. Instead telling you it had a virus and they did the right thing.

The only way to stop this madness on their part is to exclude the folder your mail is stored in from their scans. Simple as that. Otherwise when their detection engine gets a new update for something weeks or years old you inbox is toast. Even though you had no issue and the code in the email could not run anyway as Thunderbird does not allow scripts.

Symantecs instructions to exclude files and folders. http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO80920#v39818564

Wow! This program was installed by my former employer who required super security (I was a financial advisor). I'm now served by Cox Cable and they have security tools they will install and maintain. Would you recommend letting them remove End Point Detection and do their thing?

Or, is that like going from the frying pan into the fire?

Thanks, Bob

Frying pan and fire is a good analogy. Security software is all bad from a usage and simplicity perspective.

I am sure you would be aware of the huge issues that arose about a decade ago with Microsoft mail products and operating systems being poorly secured. The reason for that is it is almost impossible to be secure and easy to use. The result was UAC and it was the single most hated and complained about part of Windows Vista. How was it fixed in Windows 7. They dialed back the security.

So work with what you have, reconfigure it to your needs. But over all make sure it is being updated regularly. Nortons products loose their effectiveness almost immediately they stop getting updates.

Turn off email scanning. Radical as it sounds it is not much of a risk. Thunderbird as I said does not support scripts, so the other incoming vector is attachments. Thunderbird saves those to the temp folder so they can be opened and your anti virus should stomp on any malware content the second the file is written.

The same goes for exceptions. However what mail provider and you using, and what protocol (IMAP or POP) and I will try to be more specific about the folders you need to exempt.

I'm using gmail with Thunderbird as the mail handler on the PC and MyMail on Android. PC Protocol is IMAP w/SSL/TLS and SMTP. I have mail forwarded from yahoo and comcast but that should be a non-issue.

Hi Matt,

I was able to find and exclude the "Sent" folder / file and that seems to have solved the issue. Sent mail goes immediately.

Thanks for your patient help!

Bob