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Thunderbird downloads only a few of 1900 messages

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  • Nzaghachi ikpeazụ nke Mapenzi

John
John

Although 1900 or more messages are reported, Thunderbird only downloads a few - 18 once, 10 and now only 2 - before stopping. After deleting all messages, stopping and restarting Thunderbird, it then downloads the same few - or less - again, no new ones, and the are very old ones. Screenshot shows current situation - several identical messages only. Version 140.8.1 esr on Windows 11 - both up to date. I don't know what esr means !

Although 1900 or more messages are reported, Thunderbird only downloads a few - 18 once, 10 and now only 2 - before stopping. After deleting all messages, stopping and restarting Thunderbird, it then downloads the same few - or less - again, no new ones, and the are very old ones. Screenshot shows current situation - several identical messages only. Version 140.8.1 esr on Windows 11 - both up to date. I don't know what esr means !
Nseta ihuenyo ndị agbakwunyere

All Replies (3)

Mapenzi
Mapenzi
  • Top 10 Contributor

John said
Although 1900 or more messages are reported

....reported where? In the webmail page of your email address provider? Is this an IMAP or a POP account? It it's POP, log in to your webmail freeuk.com account and delete this repeatedly downloaded British Airways message dated from 26/01/2026

John
John Jụọ onye nwe ya ajụjụ

Thanks for your reply Mapenzi, but unfortunately that didn't work. It is a POP account as IMAP is not possible with freeuk which I have had for over 25 years. I went to webmail and deleted everything from 26/01 and all prior dates, as well as loads of spam. There are still 1334 messages there but Thunderbird now says there are no messages ! I don't understand why there's so many because I thought I had set them to delete when I deleted them from Outlook (classic) which is my main desktop client. I am going to recheck all my settings and maybe uninstall/reinstall the account in Thunderbird. I might even uninstall Thunderbird itself and then install the standard version. I didn't even know I had the ESR version and don't understand the advantage of it.

Mapenzi
Mapenzi
  • Top 10 Contributor

In Thunderbird (TB) go to Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Folder > Open Folder...then close TB. In the profile folder open the Mail folder and look for a folder named "pop.freeuk.com" (or similar), open it and delete the popstate.dat file. This file contains info about which messages have already been downloaded in TB. Now restart TB which should re-download all messages still on the server.

John said
I don't understand why there's so many because I thought I had set them to delete when I deleted them from Outlook (classic) which is my main desktop client.

Did you set up the same email address in Outlook as POP account too? Handling the same email address in different mail clients and/or on different PCs can become tricky if you don't use the IMAP protocol on all supports. Maybe your freeuk.com provider didn't propose IMAP in the last century but in the meantime we are in 2026...

John said
I didn't even know I had the ESR version and don't understand the advantage of it.

ESR (extended support release) versions get major updates once a year only ESR releases are maintained for more than a year, with point releases that coincide with regular Thunderbird releases. These point releases contain security upgrades and stability fixes. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-esr

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