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Thunderbird constantly downloading ALL emails - please help?

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by christ1

glenda.sunderland
glenda.sunderland
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Thunderbird works great almost all of the time. But intermittently (and often) it downloads all of my very old emails of which there's a few thousand, and it stops working and freezes.

Is there any way I can stop it from downloading the old emails please?

Thunderbird works great almost all of the time. But intermittently (and often) it downloads all of my very old emails of which there's a few thousand, and it stops working and freezes. Is there any way I can stop it from downloading the old emails please?

All Replies (3)

christ1
christ1
  • Top 25 Contributor
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What is the account type - POP or IMAP? If POP, did you tell Thunderbird to 'Leave messages on the server'?

Are you saying you're accumulating messages in Inbox, and don't move them to other folder(s) once read?

glenda.sunderland
glenda.sunderland Question owner
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Thank you for responding. I'm using IMAP, have used Thunderbird for a few years without problem. The emails aren't being duplicated but sometimes when I log on now I get a message in the bottom left hand corner of my screen (PC, Windows) to say "downloading 1 of XXXX emails" and the whole thing freezes for a while. I close it down, it starts back up saying the same thing. It's intermittent, doesn't happen all the time.

christ1
christ1
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These are some generic suggestions to avoid problems with anti-virus software, which may be the problem here.

Create an exception in your anti-virus software for the Thunderbird profile folder, so that the anti-virus real-time scanner will not scan it. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird

Don't let your anti-virus software scan incoming and outgoing messages.

Don't let your anti-virus software scan attachments.

Don't let your anti-virus software intercept your secure connection to the server.

Remove any add-ons your anti-virus software may have installed in Thunderbird.

Keep it working. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keep_it_working_-_Thunderbird

And last but not least, backup your Thunderbird profile on a regular basis. https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data#w_backing-up-a-profile

If you follow these suggestions, is there any difference?