Thunderbird, windows 11, earthlink/mindspring default folders

- What is your operating system?

- What anti-virus/security software are you running, if any?

Thunderbird has never created folders with those names. Therefore, either Earthlink or something local to your computer has created them. My first suspicion is an anti-virus or other security software you're running on your computer. If you are using one, there should be a setting in there somewhere so disable whatever feature is creating them.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. OS listed in the subject is Windows 11.

AV is defender, nothing else. There are no settings in defender that create folders in any email program.

If you're familiar with how Thunderbird retrieves the email server folder architecture from an ISP, that'd be a useful data point. If I need to create a new profile and just refresh the folders, that's ok too.

I'm more interested in why the "subscribe" function appears to not work in the manner expected.

Thanks, M

Situation: Several Earthlink accounts using IMAP in Thunderbird. Earthlink/mindspring folders show the same folders as webmail. However, Thunderbird includes (by default?) "Sent Spam" and "Virus Blocker" folders. These are not visible in Earthlink webmail.

They are also not a normal part of Thunderbird.

The folder subscribe function doesn't appear to do anything.

But if the folder names appear then they are existing server side.

Google search offered this

The "Virus Blocker" folder is a server-side IMAP mailbox used by EarthLink (which merged with MindSpring). When EarthLink’s server-level security scanning detects a message with a potential virus or malware threat, it automatically intercepts the email and routes it into this specific folder instead of your main Inbox.

I really do not know how many times I have said this, but you cannot compare IMAP and webmail. Webmail is just that, a web page designed by your provider to show you what your provider wants to to see. Do they include all of the same folders? Mostly. Do they have the same names, again only mostly.

Yahoo have an IMAP folder called bulk or bulk mail in IMAP. In their web mail they call is SPAM. They also used to have a folder in IMAP that was an archive of the Yahoo messenger conversations. Thankfully that went the way of the messenger app because it really caused some confusion as it had nothing to do with mail..

Somehow those in this forum end up explaining it to yahoos customers over and over. Likewise, just because your provider chooses not so show all folders in their webpage, or rename them is nothing to do with the IMAP information provided to Thunderbird to work with, it is a corporate decision made by your mail provider.

So to answer your OCD, You should be able to unsubscribe from the folders and have them disappear, but only if they are not "Special" folders. So if they have that boring yellow icon you should be able to unsubscribe them. But I have a feeling the "Virus Blocker" folder may be described by IMAP as the SPAM folder and it has that special SPAM flame icon. That would prevent it being hidden or unsubscribed.

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the info.

Evidently I misunderstand the unsubscribe function - I figured that unsubscribe would hide, or disappear the unwanted folders from the list Thunderbird shows. None of the folders are displayed with any highlight or flag.

Again, thanks. Earthlink has not impressed me with its IMAP delivery, but it's reliable 99.5% of the time with 10 different email addresses in play. I'll just put up with how Tbird interacts with it - all the developer efforts are appreciated.

M