Windows 10 reached EOS (end of support) on October 14, 2025. If you are on Windows 10, see this article.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More
Open

IMAP email downloading broken if clicking on the email list

Baron Young

Hi,

For both servers imap.exmail.qq.com / imap.263.net, when I click on the email subject in the email list during downloading processes (many emails headers are being downloaded but email body downloading is not completed), the email is broken without any content (only header).

I go to the web email server and move the email to another folder and then move it back to inbox. Then I delete the same email in Thunderbird and donwload again the email again, it's completely downloaded with the email body.

I don't have any issue with eM client or Outlook for such issues. Any possible setting to solve this issue?

Thanks.

Hi, For both servers imap.exmail.qq.com / imap.263.net, when I click on the email subject in the email list during downloading processes (many emails headers are being downloaded but email body downloading is not completed), the email is broken without any content (only header). I go to the web email server and move the email to another folder and then move it back to inbox. Then I delete the same email in Thunderbird and donwload again the email again, it's completely downloaded with the email body. I don't have any issue with eM client or Outlook for such issues. Any possible setting to solve this issue? Thanks.

All Replies (6)

Try right-click Inbox > Properties > click 'Repair folder' button.

Then I delete the same email in Thunderbird ...

Note, this would also delete the message on the server when Thunderbird is online. With IMAP there is no concept of deleting messages locally only, and keep them on the server, unless Thunderbird is offline.

Hi

Thanks for attention.

This doesn't work for me.

I have more and more emails coming in with similar issues: either part of the email (not completed conversations) downloaded, or just the email header downloaded during the downloading trafic jam if I clicked them... It seems that my click on the email which is not fully downloaded yet kind of broke or stopped the downloading processes and can not resume even if I restarted Thunderbird.

No way to refresh the email or to continue the downloading or to redownload it. Very strange.

What is your anti-virus software?

I stopped / deleted microsoft defender and don't use any anti-virus app.

Thanks

Microsoft Defender cannot be fully uninstalled or permanently disabled on Windows 10 without a third-party antivirus active. Because Defender is deeply integrated into the Windows OS, Windows enforces active real-time protection unless another registered security program takes over its role. Even though you can turn off real-time protection in Windows Security, Windows will automatically turn Defender back on after a short period or following a system reboot.

What you can and should do is to create an exclusion in Defender for the Thunderbird profile folder, so that it's real-time scanner will not scan it. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data#w_how-to-find-your-profile

Thanks. But I don't have any issue with other software like outlook, foxmail, eM Client etc. Thunderbird is the only one with the above problem.

Ask a question

You must log in to your account to reply to posts. Please start a new question, if you do not have an account yet.