Thunderbird Community Forum

Hi. I have three email accounts set up in Thunderbird. I would like to change the order that they are currently in. How best can I do that?

Thanks.

Rich

New W11 Pro pc, so new installation of Thunderbird. All profiles and folders moved over ok, but the Bin folder is an issue (main Gmail account IMAP). In my previous Tbird installation, I was able to right click the Bin folder, and be given the option of emptying said folder. Not now. The Spam folder does have the Empty option. Pics illustrate the folder list, what happens when I right click the Bin folder, and what happens when I right click the Spam folder, which does have the 'Empty Spam' option. I can highlight the messages in the Bin folder and delete them that way, but the right click option is shorter, easier... The only item I can find in the Thunderbird help pages tell me to delete the Trash and Trash msf folders in the profile - tried this twice, with no difference. It's a little frustrating... Any help would be welcomed, I guess I'm missing something really simple...

It's very odd. Normally moving an email, say from the Inbox to the relevant year's archive, takes "no time at all".

Which is true for all the mailboxes shown on the attached screenshot, EXCEPT for the four at the bottom. Moving even one message from Inbox to Yiddish can take ten seconds or longer (with the dreaded "Not Responding" occasionally). Moving something in the opposite direction is also screwy, only from those four.

I had thought that it was because they're rather large. This first started when there were just Yiddish and MSW, and I split off most of the earlier years into the archives shown. To no avail.

It's only an annoyance, but I'm puzzled about how such a thing could happen.

Also very slow tagging or untagging a message just in those mailboxes.

I use Thunderbird with my Jubii mail and lately, every time I try to send an email, Thunderbird wants my password to my email address in order to send he mail. How do I make it so that I won't have to reenter my password every time I send an email?

I hope you all are well!

I´ve been having a problem with thunderbird for a while now and today took the time to do the troubleshoot and checked all the account settings. no firewall, no add ons Researching the problem i came across the incompability of different TLS standards. Apparently when thunderbird updated to 78.0 in 2020 a lot of people had the same problem and solved it by downgrading . Since this problem came on suddenly, possibly when thunderbird upgraded automatically, and it only applys to select emails (about half) I guess different TLS standards, some of which are no longer supported by thunderbird, are the reason for this. If i log in to my mailaccount I can see all the emails, same goes for my mobile devices. That´s how i know thunderbird doesn´t display all the messages. My question: Did anyone else encounter this problem? Did I analize this correctly or did I overlook something? I don´t want to change to another provider. I always liked thunderbird for being simple and clean. But downgrading won´t be a sustainable solution either I guess. Thanx for your help. Have a nice day.

I was forced to change email from Comcast to Yahoo Mail and hate it. Downloaded Thunderbird and connected my gmail address, but it won't accept my Comcast address, which I use on Yahoo Mail.

I've done it before using ctrl-A and Print and got the date, sender and their address, and the subject line (I think in a csv file). I've since changed from Windows 10 to 11 and can't remember what I printed to. Trying it now and printing to PDF yields only the first entire message, but I don't want the message, I just want the sender (and date).

- Thunderbird set up 19/05 & email/ history /folders downloaded - Moved from DNS to GANDI Email server provider this week but now all folders/historic email are no longer visible in Thunderbird email - How do I get them back and how do I synchronise Thunderbird & Gandi so that emails shown in WEBMAIL include all History and not just new emails since Gandi switched on? Thank you.

Hello everyone,

I am hoping someone can help me recover some EXTREMELY important emails for a legal matter. I was trying to export an entire nested Gmail label (WORK/TNC/TNC DISPUTE) to PDF.

It's a lot of emails spanning from April 2024 that I had painstakingly been going through and labeling to get them ready to print to use as evidence for a work dispute. When faced with the task of having to print all those emails to pdf, one by one, I wanted to chew my own arm off!

I'm convinced there must be another way to bulk print to pdf......and so I went down a few rabbit holes in search of my quick fix.....(I'm not trying to be lazy, I just have very little time left to get this done, and right now I'm losing the will to live if my reality is that I will be busy with this till the end of time.)

I read different threads and questions over the internet and found information that led me to Thunderbird. (Hi, Thunderbird :). I know there are paid apps or extensions that can bulk print to pdf, but I unfortunately don't have the money to pay for them (i.e. the work dispute - salary has been frozen for over 2 years and resignation was denied, so no income and held hostage by my employer - the emails I have lost are literally my future!). Sorry, enough of the why.....

I DID THIS:

So I read that I need to to create a folder in Thunderbird's "Local Folders" with the same name, and simply drag and drop the label from the original label to the local folder label (I did all of this in Thunderbird.

Unfortunately, this went VERY wrong. At first it seemed like it was doing something, but it didn't really do anything that I am aware of.....There was nothing in the local folder I had created and dragged the label to, there was nothing in the original label folder (everything was empty). I died! Then comforted myself with the fact that it's still in GMAIL.....that was the naive, optimistic me talking..... Headed over to Gmail, saw my label name, sigh of relief, clicked on the label name.....DIED 10000000000000 x over.......I continued to cry for the next 4 hours...

.That was the 12th of June.....I'm still trying to get them back.....I have been able to find a few bits of info here and there.....I just don't know how to get them back into Gmail for me to never try be so foolish again!!! (Until someone maybe shows me how to bulk print to PDF?????)....

Here is the current situation and the technical details of what I've found so far:

What happened:

Thunderbird executed a "Move" command instead of a "Copy".

The TNC DISPUTE label is in my Gmail web interface (the emails are not in the label, nor the the Trash and none of my settings anywhere are set to delete permanently etc., on exit).

The Local Folder in Thunderbird shows up on my screen, but it is completely empty.

What I have discovered in the background:

Account Type: IMAP connected to Gmail (*********@gmail.com). (i've replaced my email address name with stars to not put my private email on a public site)

The Local Files: I found the tracking path imap://**********%40gmail.com@imap.gmail.com/WORK/TNC/TNC DISPUTE. I also found the raw file directories containing TNC DISPUTE (no extension) and the TNC DISPUTE.msf index file.

The roadblock I am hitting:

I read that deleting the corrupted .msf index file while Thunderbird is closed will force it to rebuild the index and potentially reveal the emails. However, at first I couldn't safely get into the folder to do this:

When I clicked "Open Folder" from Help > More Troubleshooting Information, Windows threw an error: "Explorer.EXE - There was a problem sending the command to the program."

When I try to bypassed Thunderbird and use the Windows Run dialog with %appdata%\Thunderbird\Profiles, Windows threw another path error and refused to open it.

I ended up reinstalling Thunderbird and it fixed the access profile issue and I can now access where the data gets saved from Thunderbird.....

I just don't know what to do from here to get my (previously local foldered misshaped moved) folder back in my Gmail. (safely - to not corrupt everything or worse....delete it permanently.....)

The details of the missing emails (contents of the label that did copy to the local drive I think):

Directory Contents (as shown in the attached image)

1. TNC DISPUTE.sbd

• Type: File folder

• Date modified: 19 Jun 2026, 00:55

2. msgFilterRules.dat

• Type: DAT file

• Date modified: 12 Jun 2026, 05:49

• Size: 0 KB

3. TNC DISPUTE

• Type: File

• Date modified: 19 Jun 2026, 05:55

• Size: 670,605 KB

4. TNC DISPUTE.msf

• Type: MSF file

• Date modified: 12 Jun 2026, 22:31

• Size: 3 KB

5. Trash

• Type: File

• Date modified: 12 Jun 2026, 05:48

• Size: 0 KB

6. Trash.msf

• Type: MSF file

• Date modified: 12 Jun 2026, 06:27

• Size: 2 KB

7. Unsent Messages

• Type: File

• Date modified: 12 Jun 2026, 05:48

• Size: 0 KB

8. Unsent Messages.msf

• Type: MSF file

• Date modified: 12 Jun 2026, 06:24

• Size: 2 KB

Sorry for the long post, hopefully someone can help me go back in time and have my only issue be searching for ways to bulk print to pdf and not having to try restore the only emails that are actually worth being on there.

TIA xxx Margz

Put up a message regarding support to resolve issue with Thunderbird this morning. Cannot see the message or if any answers? Query was ref downloading email & history to Thunderbird while moving to another server provider (Gandi) and all history now missing.

After reinstalling a Windstream.net email account I continue to have Authentication Required errors at startup. Popup messages only occurs during thunderbird startup. And Only on my Windstream.net email accounts. not my outlook.com and Gmail accounts.

the following is the popup window during Thunderbird startup.

"Authentication Required - Mozila Thunderbird https://imap.windstream.net is requesting your username and password."

I entered the username and password and check the save box. The popup returns with the same error asking for the same info. If I just select CANCEL, it pops up 2 more times and after the third cancel, the popup shows no more. The account fills with any incoming emails from Windstream.net. The Windstream.net account seams to work normal from that point on. I Can send and receive fine with no more popups. Until I restart thunderbird then this error starts all over. Is this a thunderbird or Windstream.net issue? Any suggestions on a fix? Also I have a gmail and outlook.com account with no issues.

Certain messages in my inbox have the correct header in the actual message, but the wrong sender in the message list - see image.

I've tried repairing the folder, but it makes no difference. Webmail has the correct sender in its message list.

We have a common email address manger@redwoodscholars.uk we recently changed manager George left us and Louise joined us. Louise changed Georges name in the setting page and removed his signature on her laptop. I changed the name in my address book and deleted all my history, Louise sent me an email which showed it was from Louise<manager@ etc> BUT when I clicked on reply, the reply was addressed to George<manager@etc> The mail is managed by web mail on stmp.host.co.uk.

What else do I need to do to correct this?

Something has gone wrong with Thunderbird. My AOL account has stopped working with it.

My AOL account works fine via the AOL website, but Thunderbird cannot access it now.

My AOL account worked fine for many years with Thunderbird until just the other day.

Now I get this window (see image) and it does not allow to Sign-In.

Thunderbird 152.0.1 (64-bit) Build ID: 20260630165458 Windows 11 IMAP account hosted by Wedos

I found what appears to be a reproducible bug when forwarding messages with attachments.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open an email with a JPG attachment. 2. Click Forward. 3. Save the message as Draft (IMAP Drafts). 4. Without closing the compose window, save the draft again.

Result:

The second save always fails with:

"An error occurred attaching 20260520_123800.jpg. Please check whether you have access to the file."

Error Console shows:

Failed to fetch attachment NS_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND url=file:///C:/Users/<user>/AppData/Local/Temp/nsmail-1.jpg

I also observed that after the first draft save Thunderbird deletes:

C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Temp\nsmail-1.jpg

However, the compose window still references this deleted temporary file.

Additional observations:

- Creating a new message and attaching a file from disk works correctly. - Forwarding a message without attachments works correctly. - Removing the forwarded attachment and attaching the same file from disk also works correctly. - Closing and reopening the saved draft restores normal behavior.

This appears to be a bug where the compose window continues using a deleted temporary attachment instead of the attachment stored in the IMAP draft.

Can anyone reproduce this with Thunderbird 152.0.1?

My school email's storage and emails will expire end of today (June 30th, 11:59 PM EST). I accidentally thought the account would just be frozen at that time, but realized they would be deleting the account all together for universities alumni.

When I downloaded Thunderbird to transfer my emails, I'm logging in, but I'm getting prompted to log in to Microsoft rather than Gmail for some reason. The email should be Google Workspace. I'd love to know what's going on as I'm not sure and my school's IT support said it's a problem with Thunderbird as it should be gmail for me.

Anyone know of any fixes or suggestions?

I would like to set up an existing Gmail account in Thunderbird.

The following window appears: (see Image 1)

I click the next button, and the next window is: (see Image 2).

How can I sign in to Google? Perhaps in a different way?

Hi, I have been running low on hard disk space due to the bloated Windows 11. I have been trying to clean up Thunderbird by deleting a bunch of saved emails and compacting, but the size of my profile folder is still about 3.5 GB. I looked at all of the subfolders under my profile and found a bunch of what I think is dead storage.

Under the MAIL folder there are 4 folders for what looks like my current Local Folders and 3 older local folders. Under the IMAPMAIL folder there are 4 folders for what looks like my 2 current email addresses and 2 older unused email addresses.

I looked under the account settings for the Local Folders and the 2 email addresses and have identified the 3 out of the 8 folders that are still being used.

So my question is, is it safe to just delete these apparently unused folders?