Thunderbird Community Forum

Thunderbird causes my machine to 'hang' from time to time,

1. often for up to a second and usually a number of times in quick succession on each ocasion. Sometimes this happens frequently - say every 5 or 10 minutes - sometimes only after an hour or more since the past occurrance.

2. My machine hangs completely - nothing will work, mouse, keyboard, sound, other apps etc. If I happen to be typing (into any app - including Thunderbird - when this happens, input ceases, the cursor freezes and - if the problem persists for a second or two, Windows reports "[app] is not responding"

3. I cannot be certain, but I believe the problem occurs whilst messages are being retrieved.

This is a very serious problem as it means that I can never leave TB running as the problems it causes are not acceptable.

4. This means I cannot deal with incoming messages without periodically re-starting TB - which is an utter PIA.

I am running Win 11 Professional on a 2-year old machine with 64 Gb of memory. I have run TB in Troubleshoot mode, I have confirmed that the problem occurs regardless or whatever other apps are running (or none) and I have proven conclusively that no other app causes any kind of similar problem.

Looking forward yto hearing if others have had the same issue and what can be done about it.

I've been using Thunderbird for years at this point and it was fine, but then some time after the latest update I stopped getting new emails. I tried a bunch of random "solutions" I found on the internet and I don't remember exactly which one, but eventually I got the web portal to pop up, and it showed that I'm logged out of all my accounts (they all gmail, btw). Using this windows I was able to log back into one of them, but then it didn't popped up again to let me to log into others. For a day or so I was getting email from that one account I logged back into, but then again, suddenly, no new emails. I decided to just start over on a new profile and that's where things went from bad to worse. Now I can't even get past the initial logging process. It gives me "unable to log in at sever" over and over, no matter what I try. I tried a bunch of different config suggestions, I tried the old school way of getting a device password, I've checked if localhost was running something - it wasn't. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, installing an older esr version (I'm on Win10, thought maybe that has something to do with it) - same thing. Unable to log in at server. I can switch back to my old profile that doesn't get any emails anymore, I've backed it up, but what's the point. Kinda feeling screwed on all fronts here.

Also, whoever is replying to people on reddit with "thunderbird employee" badge, ghosted me after one message. Great support /sarcasm.

Version: latest (whatever auto updated updated to) and 140.8.1esr OS: win10. Mail provider: gmail.

I have created several categories that I use to assign a color to each of my calendar event entries. When I do this, the event shows a very thing stripe of my assigned category color down the righthand side of the entry. I would REALLY like the entries to be colored entirely with my category colors rather than that tiny stipe. Is this feature available and if not, I am hoping it can be considered in the very near future.

Using Thunderbird version 140.8.0esr on Windows 10 . Been trying to reorganize local folders. Thunderbird is NOT correctly alphabetizing local folders. I've beaten myself to death googling for answers, and nearly every entry claims you can right click on the account name and select "Reset Folder Order" and it will take care of it.

there IS no such option! Anywhere!

Other answers claim you can drag the folders manually into the correct order. Not happening!

There must be a real answer to this issue. Where do I find it? And please don't advise upgrading to Windows 11 - this CPU/motherboard won't support 11.

I am using Thunderbird on a Macbook Pro 13-inch mid-2012, in a POP3 account

Thunderbird 140.10 is generally running fine, except that some sub-folders are not visible in my Thunderbird email tool view. I have a hierarchical

I have tried repairing the parent folders, but that had no effect.

The corresponding .sbd files are clearly visible in ~/<user>/Library>/<profile>/Mail/Local Folders/pop-server.<account> and being backed up in Time Machine backups.

Curiously, there is a much-truncated replica of some .sbd folders in Local Folders named /<folder-name>.sbd, all dated in 2013, yet the folder was created in 2017. I presume these refer to an update of Thunderbird that left some trash, and of no consequence. These are parallel to Archives and Archives.msf files.

Please advise on how to disambiguate this structure and recover views of existing mail folders not being displayed.

Hello, I have selcted the option "Expunge" under Settings -> Server-Settings -> Message-Storage. The intention was to delete messages from the server of ma Email-Provider (GMX). Unintentionally however, the result was, that instead, the Messages have been deleted from my local computer. Can I recover them? They do not appear in the Recycle Bin.

I am using Version 149.0.2 (64-Bit) on a Windows Computer.

Thank you in advance, Michael Gerkens

Can I just copy the entire profile folder and name it as a backup or do I have to copy the contents of the folder?

I just want to create a backup to include all my email messages.

Thanks

I'm using Thunderbird 152.0a1 (2026-04-22) on Windows 10 64 bit. When I click the "Get Messages" button or File > Get New Messages for > [my e-mail account] nothing happens. The only way I've found to check for messages manually is by closing and re-opening the program.

Hi. I´m running thunderbird 150.0 under win10 an a HP2760p with 8 GB RAM and 155 GB of free SDD-space.

I´ve got the errormessage: "Nachrichten konnten nicht in die Mailbox-Datei geschrieben werden. Stellen Sie sicher, dass das Dateisystem Ihnen Schreibrechte einräumt und genügend Speicherplatz zur Verfügung steht, um die Mailbox zu kopieren."

That is: Unable to write mesages to the mailbox-file. Make shure to have writing rights according to the filesystem and enaugh space is available to copy the mailbox.

I can´t find a limitation to filesize. I deleted a lot of mails, the error persists. I updated from thunderbird 140 to 150.0. The error persists. I downloaded my emails on an win11 Laptop. The download stopped after a while with the same error.

What can I do ? Thanks in advance - Robin

During most attempts to move emails to folders in Thunderbird, the operation does not occur for five to ten seconds. Often, I will see a "systems busy" circle during the operation. This has been going on for weeks...

It's a big time waster. I can't do anything else in Thunderbird until the "Move" has been completed.

I have removed the drive from the computer that will not boot up. I hope to be able to transfer my "profile" to my new computer from that drive. I understand that I will need to have the same version of Thunderbird installed on my new computer in order to transfer my "profile". Since I can't access Thunderbird on my "crashed" computer, how can I know what version I had installed previously? How do I find where to load that version on my new computer?

It appears that Thunderbird was very recently changed. I was very happy with the version I was using before the change. How can I get my old version back?

I don't know what version that was. I have used Thunderbird for a while. Does that imply that the previous version was 149.01? Or was it 148.01?

I had been using Thunderbird on a linux computer (ubuntu). I am now using it on a windows machine (temporarily, I hope). Could that be the reason I see a dramatic difference?

Thank you.

I have Version 140.8.0esr | Released February 24, 2026, for Linux Mint (up to date)

I have a CardDAV address book on a Nextcloud instance that i want to sync to Thunderbird.

When i open Address Book and the clikc on " Create a new address book" the Account Hub modal window opens. None of the 4 options (including Add Remote Address Book" do anything, i.e. I can click as much as I like but nothing happens.

I've been using TB for years. Lately I can be browsing the Inbox when the contents will disappear and I get a message saying something like no messages found. After about 30 seconds the Inbox is displayed again.

TB never used to do this and it is similar to Firefox refreshing the screen which it also never used to do this.

Also how do I get from the Beta version to the standard version?

I subscribe to a number of RSS feeds in TB. This works well nearly all of the time but sometimes I find that TB has paused updates. I never want it to do this.

Why does it happen and is there a way to stop it doing it?

I am trying to add one of my Google email accounts to Thunderbird. It brings up the "Sign in with Google" window, which is normal. But instead of "Sign in to continue to Google...", it says "Sign in to continue to Mozilla Thunderbird Email". Which then generates an error: "Error 400. The server cannot process the request because it is malformed. It should not be retried. That’s all we know." I've not ever experienced this issue before; adding a Google account has always been super easy and straightforward.

tazlady1966@gmail.com that is the correct mail for my Google account but when I press the next button my Gmail changes to tazlady1966@gnail.com why does this keep doing this???

  Is my Gmail hacked or has a bug!!!

When using message filters "Run Now" is often greyed out after running a filter and remains greyed out after the filter has completed filtering. (Hung up?) This does not happen if the filter does not find any matching messages. Clicking on another filter and then returning to the first one returns the "Run Now" button to active (not greyed out). Not sure, but the problem might be associated with filters that copy a message file to a Local folder, or delete messages, or move messages to Trash, or all three. I'm stumped. The problem started recently and I'm not aware of any changes I made to Thunderbird.