Thunderbird Community Forum

I am running Thunderbird 115.18.0 (64-bit) on Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia (base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy). My goal is to create an offline copy of a 13 GB gmail account in local folders and then delete all the custom IMAP folders to regain some free space in gmail storage.

I am achieving this by: 1) Setting up an IMAP account in Thunderbird for the gmail account. 2) Enabling local storage of all folders (in Settings and set config flag, etc). Changed gmail settings to unlimit the number of IMAP downloads. Set Thunderbird account concurrent connections to 15 (gmail max). a) Edit/Preferences/Advanced/General/Config Editor: mail.server.default.check_all_folders_for_new = true 3) Click on each IMAP folder in Thunderbird to initiate download of that folder. I don't see this documented anywhere but it doesn't seem to download the messages in each folder until I do this. 4) Turn Thunderbird offline and ask it to download all emails before going offline. 5) Copy all folders from the gmail account in thunderbird to local storage. 6) Turn Thunderbird back online. 6) Delete custom IMAP folders in Thunderbird gmail account to clean up gmail online storage.

In my mind, step 2 should be enough to force a download of all emails in all IMAP folders. I added steps 3 and 4 because it's unclear when this process is complete. Especially given gmail IMAP bandwidth limits: https://support.google.com/a/answer/1071518?hl=en

My questions relates to step 3 and 4. In step 3, I don't really have any way to know when Thunderbird has finished downloading all emails from all the gmail IMAP folders. I'm experiencing the typical gmail login issues and throttling due to too many concurrent connections and given this it could take days if Thunderbird can even keep track of which messages downloaded and which got errors back from gmail.

How do I know when Thunderbird has finished downloading messages prior to going offline? Does it notify me with a dialog or do I just have to keep hovering over the Offline toggle periodically until it actually says offline?

Any constructive tips on how to confirm everything is downloaded or process improvements, etc.

Thanks, pi

Hello, in last times it going in my Inbox many Billings at Zugferd-Format. Zugferd is an German *.PDF Format with *.XML. Now i can open an Email with Billing in Zugferd, and the attachment as *.Pdf. I see the '.PDF. Wen i want to Print the Attchment *.PDF there comes White Paper as the Printer.

Wen it make an Download the *.Pdf, open with Acrobat PDF Viewer an Print ist all Ready only in Thunderbird i have Probleme with Zugferd *.PDF Print.

Opened Thunderbird today April 7, 2025 and the oldest email was from 2:58 PM April 6 2025. All my extensive collection of folders and old email have disappeared. New messages arrive in my inbox just fine. I suspect that there is a folder still on my hard drive somewhere with all the info in it. It appears that Thunderbird just can't find it for some reason. How can I help Thunderbird get back to using that file?

Hello again.

I asked this before but still it's not working.

Sometimes E-Mails shown in Thunderbird are missing 50% of the content (first 50%). Today 2 E-Mails got mixed up. So Thunderbird showed 2 E-Mails with the same content but different Subjects. So 1 was wrong. When I logged into my E-Mail Account then it was all ok there. So it must be a Thunderbird Problem or Server-IMAP Problem.

The Question is: How can I tell Thunderbird to re-download this email ?

I was told here this before: "right click the folder, select properties and then the repair button. Does that fix it?" Yes that does solve it but this mixes up the view in Thunderbird (columns are resetted), I don't want that.

Is there any way to re-download a specific email ? I really wonder why such a professionel e-mail program lacks such simple function.

Thank you Nico

Help!!! I downloaded what version of thunderbird I was allowed to for 7/vista (from memory, it was V 38.5)...

-trying to get an outlook account into thunderbird on the older windows, I have (had to) manually configure thunderbird, - exactly as I have done, say, on Kmail android - server name: outlook.office365.com, port 993, SSL/TLS, OAuth2. Outgoing server smtp.office365.com, port 587, STARTTS, OAuth2...

->Immediate failure when I click on the Inbox with a message that the "IMAP server xxx@hotmail.com does not accept the authentication method. Please choose..." -I've tried all of the various offered authentications in the list -- no luck. I have provided screen shots if that might be helpful

Does anyone have the right approach or any way to connect on a 7/Vista machine???

Thanks a whole bunch!

I have turned off the junk mail/spam settings, both globally and for each account. I have rebooted several times. Each time, while the settings all say junk screening is turned off, each account has junk mail moved to the junk folder after IMAP sync. I run my own mail server. It is not doing this, Thunderbird is. Does anyone have any idea how to get the program to follow what I actually want? Why have the settings if they don't actually do anything? Getting very frustrated here.

My email host requires changes to connection settings (this is for an existing account), specifically to increase security but also specifying new incoming and outgoing server names.

I have meticulously copied the settings provided by the host for this purpose but Thunderbird will not (cannot?) connect to the server.

Thunderbird is not asking for my password, nor does the password appear in TB's 'Saved Passwords'.

So I tried 'Add Mail Account', entered all the new settings manually, but TB responds 'Incoming server already exists' (presumably because I had already changed the existing account settings?) - see screenshot.

Should I remove the existing account before trying 'Add Mail Account'? Although that would seem unlikely to work, since the existing account with the new settings does not connect.

Support from my email (and broadband) host has been practically useless, so I thought I would ask the wonderful brains on TB forum if they can give me any clue as to where things are going wrong?

I open a reply box to an email and the background changes from white to black, so all the text disappears. Or, It opens in white and my response comes out in white and it all disappears. It's annoying to have to change the font color for every reply. Anythings easier? And why is this problem even there?

Dear Sirs, When I move emails that I have sent or received normally to a local folder, I am unable to see the contents of the email at all, and I can no longer move the email back to the inbox to check. I would appreciate some advice on the cause and solution.

hello. I have thunderbird mail on my windows 11 computer and android phone and for the last month I have had difficulty receiving and sending mail. Sending attached files is not possible at all. best regards håkan magnusson xxxx@bahnhof.se

Hi - how can one changes the standard settings for "Organize folders" in Thunderbird. I have 100+ folders and I would like them all to have the same setting, e.g. after date, newest in the top and without tread combined. My Thunderbird is Danish, so maybe my translated settings word aren't correct - I'm sorry for that :-)

Best Max

I have added Gmail and another account successfully to Thunderbird, but when attempting to add Icloud Mail it fails and says to check passwords, etc. Using the same credentials I can log into the icloud website successfully, so it is not my userid or password.

I tried the method discussed here for the gmail issues but that made no difference.

Adding Icloud mail is the last account I need.

Any ideas or anyone else with same issue? Platform is Linux.

In the Thunderbird windows menu list, below minimize and zoom, the message subject line is lost (says "Mozilla Thunderbird" only) for incoming messages, but not for replies. Where can I fix this? --- Using Thunderbird Desktop Version 128.8.1esr on MacBook Air M2 with MacOS Monterey 12.5

My most recent update is VERY difficult to understand and use. Is there any other way to ask for help with the endless really simple puzzles that this new TBird brings. I don't get any answers in this forum - or there may be answers but I can't find them. Where do users go to get quick how-to-do-it answers?