Thunderbird Community Forum

I have been using Thunderbird calendar synced to gmail a/c on Linux Mint for many years and have been able to send reminder notifications by email. Recently I had to unsubscribe my calendar and reinstall to clear a fault and the notification by email function has disappeared from Thunderbird event notifications. Can you tell me how to restore that function?

Version 140.11.1esr

My Yahoo account on Thunderbird sees no email found.

My eMail Providers: Yahoo, AOL, Gmail.

AOL and Gmail(2 accounts) work fine. Only Yahoo doesn't respond. As you can see in the attached screen shot, it shows a "No Messages Found" message.

I have tried everything listed in the support page.

I'm sure it is something simple but I can't see it.

To get some information out of the way before reading: my verbose step-by-step is listed below, followed by a summary without the trouble shooting steps. I have read the information about managing profiles when running multiple release channels, but found it a little confusing. If I can improve the formatting here, please let me know and I will edit my post to be more clear.

I am leaving the troubleshooting steps in the event that I did something wrong here.

My questions are primarily: 1. is there a more straightforward way to do this? 2. are there any additional steps to follow after successfully getting both a Release channel installation and a Beta channel installation as far as profile management?

The problem, with step-by-step troubleshooting steps to solve I have Thunderbird Release installed on Linux Mint system-wide, following the instructions here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/installing-thunderbird-linux#w_system-thunderbird-installation

Now I take note of the fact that beta must be installed in a different directory: "It is possible to have multiple channels of Thunderbird installed, and even run them simultaneously. Each must be installed in a different installation directory, which will force multiple Thunderbird data profiles to be used in order to protect and keep your data separated."

• ...so although I have an `/opt/thunderbird/` directory, I rename the downloaded extracted tarball `thunderbird-beta/` and move that directory to `/opt`

I move on to Step 4 from the article linked, creating a symlink.

• what I used to install Release: `sudo ln -s /opt/thunderbird/thunderbird /usr/local/bin/thunderbird`
• what I used today to install Beta: `sudo ln -s /opt/thunderbird-beta/thunderbird /usr/local/bin/thunderbird-beta`

Everything works from here as far as me being able to click on the `thunderbird-beta` executable in `/usr/local/bin` and get into the Beta application with a fresh program.

Here is the step I'm unsure of, and where I run into issues.

In Step 5 of the linked article, when I installed release: "Download a copy of the desktop file": `wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mozilla/sumo-kb/main/installing-thunderbird-linux/thunderbird.desktop -P /usr/local/share/applications`

...gives me a launcher in `/usr/local/share/applications`. I can edit this in a text editor to point to a different icon etc if need be, but when installing release this is obviously already configured.

So when I install beta, I don't want two of the same icons representing different Thunderbird channels, because my assumption is that will cause issues. So instead of downloading this file again, I copy the file I downloaded with `wget` when installing release, and instead of naming it `thunderbird.desktop` I name it `thunderbird-beta.desktop`

• I then edit this file in a text editor to point to the Beta icon in `/opt/thunderbird-beta/chrome/icons/default/default256.png`
• But the resulting file indicates "there was a problem launching the application" and when reopening the file in a text editor, I notice none of my changes have persisted and it's blank.

...I can confirm through a file manager that the icon at `/opt/thunderbird-beta/chrome/icons/default` is a visually different icon with "Beta" added to the bottom of the icon.

So this launcher in `/usr/local/share/applications` is the step I'm having trouble with.

Troubleshooting steps:

• I delete the previously edited `thunderbird-beta.desktop` file, and I rerun the `wget` command to download another copy of `thunderbird.desktop`, this time using the `-o` flag so that the resulting name is `thunderbird-beta.desktop` again. I again edit this with a text editor and point the icon field to `/opt/thunderbird-beta/chrome/icons/default/default256.png`

For some reason, this works: allows me to save my changes and the icon of `thunderbird-beta.desktop` successfully changes to the Beta icon. By default, with no other changes, clicking this successfully launches Thunderbird, but of course it launches my Release version, so I change the Exec parameter to point to the Beta executable in `/usr/local/bin`

And now I get my desired results: start menu entry, separate icon, and launching the Beta release.

So my primary questions again are: 1. I notice that simply running the Beta application once uses the same `.thunderbird` directory that Release uses, and creates its own profile folder, which seems ideal to me. Verifying that this is the expected and preferred behavior? 2. I'm confused about the support article for profile management when running multiple release channels. Do I want to re-add all of my accounts to Beta from inside the application, therefore having two copies of my mail and profiles on my computer?

An address book that I was using for years suddenly stopped working. It was called 'nachbarn'. I had to rename it to 'nachbarn@here', and it worked again. This is on Linux, and a week ago I have been using this list with its old name. But in betwen I changed my account from POP3 to IMAP, which may have contributed. Since there are plenty of complaints on the Internet, I'd suggest to change the plausi check for the address field, so that the address must either contain an '@' or be the name of a list or address book?

Thanks a lot!

My email provider provides "Disposable Email Addresses" - aliases which still direct mail to my inbox but don't expose my primary email to any web sites etc. I provide them to. It's very handy for registering for mailing lists, product vendors etc. since if one gets leaked, it's no big deal. I can drop the email again, but at least I know who was responsible for leaking it (I still get spam to my old Myspace account). My problem is that I'll occasionally have a need to reply such an email, and by default my From: address is my primary email address, not the one in the To: header. This is confusing to the recipient (since it's from some unknown email) and also exposes my email unintentionally. Is there any way to configure Thunderbird to always reply using the To: address? If there are multiple To: or CC: addresses, it could perhaps be specified with a wildcard matching any of my aliases. I can do it with Identities, I know, but I have to set that up before replying and I frequently forget.

Hi, I can receive emails (via satellite internet) but not send. I logged on to my email provider and I can send emails from there but not from here. any ideas?????

I'm reading the question Thread's broken sorting makes it completely unusable and I have to agree that order of messages within thread is not the best one - ascending. For example, I am subscribed to a forum messages and I'm getting all the notifications for a topic to a thread. Currently I have like 85 messages in a thread and to see the newest one I have to scroll all the way down each time - scrolling 85 messages is a lot and it is getting worse because the number of messages keeps growing. After I've seen the newest message, I have to scroll all the way up to close the thread. (or am I missing something - perhaps some shortcuts?)

But I guess for some such ordering is obviously fine. Hence, I guess, an option how to sort threads might come handy. Perhaps even having a default sort order and an override per thread?

PS. funnily enough, I'll have the same issue with notifications for this question :)

I use Thunderbird on dark mode, so by default, unformatted text (where I haven't explicitly set text color) appears as white text on a black background in my compose window. The same unformatted text, when sent to someone viewing it in light mode, appears as black on white to them and remains readable. When I use white text in my compose window, it looks identical to me, but remains white when sent and is thus unreadable white-on-white to those using light mode. Is there something in the composition window that indicates whether I'm typing with formatted or unformatted text? (No, the color selector tool does not do this. When typing unformatted text, it displays the last selected colors, regardless of whether they are being used.)

If there's no way to distinguish this, could someone please add a UI element for it?

thunderbird refuses to connect with my email account. it says, either the name is wrong or the passwort, or the settings. name and pssword is proofed, so its the settings. where can i find them, and what is to do ?

I use vertical view. Hate threading so that's turned off. I use a medium to large message pane. Recently been having issues with column visibility. Not sure if this is new or whether it's that I've come to a Linux client from a Windows one and there's a setting I missed when I set up the client.

Essentially dragging the column divider doesn't work properly (for me). The columns always seem to auto adjust width. Similarly if I resize the message pane the columns don't remain fixed they auto adjust.

I don't find this helpful. I prefer to set up the columns to display the amount I want/need in subject and From and I truncate the date to simply not display time.

How do I set column widths to remain where I put them? Or is this function now lost.

I recently obtained a digital certificate for use with S/MIME. I followed the process laid out in

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/instructions-smime-certificate-using-csr

to generate my key pair, create a CSR, submit it to a CA, download the resulting certificate file, and import it into Thunderbird. I also imported the intermediate certificate showed as the issuer for my cert, which in turn appears to be signed by one of the certs trusted by default in Thunderbird.

Having done that, I see the certificate showing up under "your certificates" in the Certificate Manager, with a "not before" date in the past and a "not after" date in the future. So everything appears to look correct, but when I try to send a signed email I get the following error message as a pop-up:

"Sending of the message failed. You specified that this message should be digitally signed, but the application either failed to find the signing certificate specified in your Mail & Newsgroup Account Settings, or the certificate has expired."

And if I look at the console in developer tools I see:

"mailnews.send: NS_ERROR_FAILURE: Component returned failure code: 0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE) [nsIMsgComposeSecure.beginCryptoEncapsulation]

   _startCryptoEncapsulation resource:///modules/MimeMessage.sys.mjs:488
   _writePart resource:///modules/MimeMessage.sys.mjs:536
   createMessageFile resource:///modules/MimeMessage.sys.mjs:82
   createAndSendMessage resource:///modules/MessageSend.sys.mjs:147
   CompleteGenericSendMessage chrome://messenger/content/messengercompose/MsgComposeCommands.js:6456
   GenericSendMessage chrome://messenger/content/messengercompose/MsgComposeCommands.js:6372
   SendMessage chrome://messenger/content/messengercompose/MsgComposeCommands.js:6984
   doCommand chrome://messenger/content/messengercompose/MsgComposeCommands.js:1085
   doCommand chrome://messenger/content/messengercompose/MsgComposeCommands.js:1263
   goDoCommand chrome://messenger/content/globalOverlay.js:99
   oncommand chrome://messenger/content/messengercompose/messengercompose.xhtml:1
   openWindowPrompt resource:///actors/PromptParent.sys.mjs:75
   receiveMessage resource:///actors/PromptParent.sys.mjs:18
   openPrompt resource://gre/modules/Prompter.sys.mjs:1228
   openPromptSync resource://gre/modules/Prompter.sys.mjs:1071
   alert resource://gre/modules/Prompter.sys.mjs:1375
   alert resource://gre/modules/Prompter.sys.mjs:78
   fail resource:///modules/MessageSend.sys.mjs:358
   createAndSendMessage resource:///modules/MessageSend.sys.mjs:157

MessageSend.sys.mjs:149:32

   createAndSendMessage resource:///modules/MessageSend.sys.mjs:149
   CompleteGenericSendMessage chrome://messenger/content/messengercompose/MsgComposeCommands.js:6456
   GenericSendMessage chrome://messenger/content/messengercompose/MsgComposeCommands.js:6372
   SendMessage chrome://messenger/content/messengercompose/MsgComposeCommands.js:6984
   doCommand chrome://messenger/content/messengercompose/MsgComposeCommands.js:1085
   doCommand chrome://messenger/content/messengercompose/MsgComposeCommands.js:1263
   goDoCommand chrome://messenger/content/globalOverlay.js:99
   oncommand chrome://messenger/content/messengercompose/messengercompose.xhtml:1
   openWindowPrompt resource:///actors/PromptParent.sys.mjs:75
   receiveMessage resource:///actors/PromptParent.sys.mjs:18
   openPrompt resource://gre/modules/Prompter.sys.mjs:1228
   openPromptSync resource://gre/modules/Prompter.sys.mjs:1071
   alert resource://gre/modules/Prompter.sys.mjs:1375
   alert resource://gre/modules/Prompter.sys.mjs:78
   fail resource:///modules/MessageSend.sys.mjs:358
   createAndSendMessage resource:///modules/MessageSend.sys.mjs:157"

I can't make sense of the error message, since the certificate appears under "your certificates" in the certificate manager, and it does not appear to be expired. Can anyone suggest how to determine the root cause and fix it? Does it matter that the certificate is for a non-default identify I've added for the account in Thunderbird? Does it matter if the "common name" in the certificate doesn't match the "Your Name" field in Thunderbird? Any pointers on what to check would be appreciated.

When I receive a junk email, it spends a brief time in my inbox before being moved to the spam folder by the automatic classifier of Thunderbird. In that brief window, the notification system already displays the notification. I found no way of changing that behavior. Is this normal behavior? How to change it?

I am using Kubuntu 26.04 and I am using the monthly stable channel version of the Thunderbird Snap. In KDE system settings, the default email client is set to Thunderbird. Upon every startup of Thunderbird, it ask if I want to set it as the default client for email, newsgroups, feeds and calendar and when I click yes and close Thunderbird and reopen it it does the same thing, over and over. Otherwise the email program operates just fine otherwise. My email accounts are all setup properly and functioning and working and it downloads email just fine. It just has that annoying popup upon every startup. I've included two images to show what I mean. I like the Snap version and prefer that container format. I would like someone who is smarter than me to file a bug on my behalf.

Since a few days, there seems to be an italicized copy of each folder in my mailbox. I tried multiple times to delete them, but, although they seem deleted, they appear again when I start up Thunderbird. I already contacted the hosting service, but they replied that this is an issue of Thunderbird.

In my Thunderbird I have some folders with names printed italic starting with "INBOX". The folders are empty, so it's easy to delete them. After deleting I don't see the folders anymore. But after shutting down Thunderbird and starting Thunderbird again, the folders are back... How do I delete the folders to not see them anymore?

Best regards, Marianne

TB connects to Yahoo Plus just fine. Folders display but no emails display?? I fixed this once a while back by deleting config files in TB and re-adding Yahoo. It has happened again?? Forgot which files I wiped (in Linux Mint). Anyway to avoid doing this continually and what's the fix?

Hi! I use Thunderbird at home, but at work I have to use Outlook. This M$ sh... uses Ctrl-Q to mark emails as read. After a long day at work, I go home, sit down at my computer, and automatically keep pressing Ctrl-Q instead of R. I'm sure I'm not alone in having this problem. Could you please allow users to choose which hotkey exits Thunderbird, or at least disable the hotkey?