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Deleting a gmail based account from Thunderbird

  • 5 amsoshi
  • 0 sa na da wannan matsala
  • Amsa ta ƙarshe daga E.R. Hall

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I currently use Thunderbird 128.3.1esr (32-bit). I monitor 5 different gmail based accounts from it. The primary issue is that I have removed one account from the "settings : Account Actions " dropdown several times and every time I reboot my windows box the old account returns. A lesser issue but still a distractor is that my Message View Layout returns to the default on the same regular reboot. How can I permanently delete the account??? and if it's a twofer, have my message view choice remain?? Thanks. Bob.

I currently use Thunderbird 128.3.1esr (32-bit). I monitor 5 different gmail based accounts from it. The primary issue is that I have removed one account from the "settings : Account Actions " dropdown several times and every time I reboot my windows box the old account returns. A lesser issue but still a distractor is that my Message View Layout returns to the default on the same regular reboot. How can I permanently delete the account??? and if it's a twofer, have my message view choice remain?? Thanks. Bob.

Mafitar da aka zaɓa

I think I found the issue. I have a company supported iteration of Jumpcloud running. It had my Thunderbird profile locked down for some reason. I turned off the service and success. The pref.js file was updated as of today. The email account is truly gone and my view configuration was saved as well. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Bottom line the culprit was Jumpcloud not McAffee.

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Thunderbird is being prevented from saving the prefs.js file when shut down. When you delete the account, it appears deleted because thunderbird is hold the deletion in memory, to be updated at shutdown. But if prevented from updating the prefs.js file, on restart, it reloads the file and the account displays again. The same explanation applies to the message view layout. The challenge is finding the culprit, maybe an antivirus? If you browse profile outside of thunderbird in windows file explorer, you might see multiple copies of prefs.js, such as prefs-1.js, prefs-2.js, etc. If so, I would delete all versions except the one with highest number, and then rename that one to prefs.js and restart thunderbird. My guess is the deleted account will now be gone.

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Hi David, Thanks for the response. I found the file: C:\Users\edwar\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\siys5lrh.default-release\prefs.js However it was last written to in July 2023 and there were no extra versions. I have McAffee antivirus and I don't recall any specific event from last year that would account for locking that file down. Let me know if there might be other troubleshooting solutions for this.

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Zaɓi Mafita

I think I found the issue. I have a company supported iteration of Jumpcloud running. It had my Thunderbird profile locked down for some reason. I turned off the service and success. The pref.js file was updated as of today. The email account is truly gone and my view configuration was saved as well. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Bottom line the culprit was Jumpcloud not McAffee.

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That McAfee was not implicated is most unusual.

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Matt, concur!!

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