Thunderbird Community Forum

Can I use Thunderbird to build an incremental local backup/archive of all messages transiting (incoming/outgoing) a webmail account ?

Any idea how to achieve this ?

My problem is:

• A POP3 account will miss all folders except the Inbox. (It's a pity that POP4 has not gained traction yet.)
• An IMAP account creates a mirror, not a backup. Remote deletions in the webmail account must not delete messages from my backup and vice versa.

detailed requirements:

• one-way sync only, since a local backup/archive must be built, not a mirror (two-way synchronization):
• Remote deletions must not cause local deletions (otherwise it would be a mirror, not an archive/backup).
• Local move/delete operations must not be reflected back to the mail server.
• Read‐only access to the mail server: no moves, deletes or flags remotely.
• All messages in all folders must be included in the backup: Inbox, Sent, custom folders, etc. Since POP3 can only back up the Inbox, I will probably have to settle for IMAP to include all folders.
• No duplicates: Messages must not be stored locally more than once.
• Messages must be stored as full offline copies locally (not just headers).

I have two issues that are related to a buggy interaction between Thunderbird and Microsoft's email server.

Issue (1) When I send an email with my Outlook email address (from the Android app or from outlook.live.com, but not Thunderbird), my email address shows up as a jumbled mess in the sent folder on Thunderbird.

It appears to the effect of

IMCEAEX-_O=FIRST+20ORGANIZATION_OU=EXCHANGE+20ADMINISTRATIVE+20GROUP+XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX+29_CN=RECIPIENTS_CN=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX@sct-XX-XX-XXXX-X-msonline-outlook-6f06c.templateTenant

(I have masked some potentially sensitive information).

In the sent folder on my Outlook Android app, my email address looks normal. It also looks fine on a browser in outlook.live.com. However, it's in the sent folder on Thunderbird that my email address is a mess.

Issue (2) When my Outlook email address is involved, the sending and receiving email addresses in the "correspondent" field are swapped in Thunderbird.

There are a couple situations where this swap happens:

1. Sending an email with my Outlook email account (either through the Android app or outlook.live.com, but not Thunderbird). In my Outlook sent folder on Thunderbird, the "correspondent" field shows my jumbled email address and not the receiving address, such as bob@gmail.com. Likewise, In the inbox of the receiving email account (such as bob@gmail.com) on Thunderbird, the "correspondent" field shows bob@gmail.com and not my Outlook email address.
2. Sending an email with any other account in Thunderbird to my Outlook email address. In my Outlook inbox on Thunderbird, the "correspondent" field shows my Outlook email address (this time unjumbled) and not the sending email address. However, in the sent folder of the sending email account in Thunderbird, the "correspondent" field shows up correctly (i.e., my Outlook email address).

These two issues are perplexing and probably related. Thank you for any help!

hello I left account A (Google) and I am mainly using account B (Google) now. However, when I search for the mail of account A, it only shows the result, but after clicking it, it shows that there is no mail. How can I recover it? This is because the most important mail is in account A. PLEASE HELP ME....

Hello!

We use some filters in thunderbird to manage messages redirection to other mail-boxes. When message body contains any image, it disappears after redirection via filter rule.

When you forward same message to the same person by hands - works great, nothing is missing.

Can you help with any suggests / advises for thunderbird client config to fix this?

We use Thunderbird 115.5.0 (64-bit).

Thank you.

I know this question has been asked before, but haven't been able to resolve the issue - I have in my Trash folder, the Spam and Draft folders there, no idea how they got there. I use multiple computers and have the same issue on all. I am running Thunderbird 128.11.1esr (64 bit) on my desktop, which is Linux Mint.

If there are any suggestions on how to move the folders back to their original location, would be good, unless I have to now live with it.

Thanks, V1King

On my new laptop (Acer Aspire) I set up my gmail account without a problem, but T-bird will not set up my business account (on my domain, hosted by midphase/stackmail). I used all the settings from my t-bird account on my old laptop, but nothing I try works. I get a yellow box with the message "Unable to log in at server. Probably wrong configuration, username or password". I also tried lettting Thunderbird find the settings; they didn't work either.

What next?

I was moving stored emails between folders. After many moves, when moving a group, the move failed with message "TOO BIG" APPEND  ??. Since then, I have been unable to move or copy even single emails. How can this be cleared?

I have set my account to "Don't delete any messages", because I frequently want to reread a deleted message in my Trash folder. However, when I go into my Trash folder to search for a deleted message, I am finding that messages older than a certain date have disappeared, although I've done nothing to permanently delete them. For example, today everything older than May 3 is gone. What can I do to prevent this?

thanks, CW

Hello,

In looking at new messages the inbox, there is a button to send it to the Archive, and another to send it to the trash. Both buttons work as expected. However, the trash button is sending the message to both locations. Is that just the way it is? Or is there a way to only send it to trash? I've spent some time searching the settings and haven't found anything other then disabling the archive altogether. I also didn't find anyone complaining about this, so I suspect I've missed something.

Thanks!

I am currently using old outlook and am thinking of switching to Thunderbird for better mobile calender integration with my gmail account. I do not like IMAP as I prefer my data locally and it impacts performance. One aspect of outlook that I use constantly is reminders on emails, meaning a get a reminder on the date and time I set to look at an email that I sent or received in the past.

Can this be replicated in some way with Thunderbird?

Hello, we are facing an issue like unable view the emails. Resulting in blankpages.

Same issue happened last month also.

Current version - 139.0.2 and the we are using UNC path.

Any advice would be helpful!

Edit : currently we have downgraded to the thunderbird version 138.0.2 and we are able to view the emails.

1. Thunderbirdportable 139.0.2: Nearly all emails work well. But the attached email doesn't present the inline pictures well. I tried outlook, foxmail, emclient and all worked very well. But TB cannot do it.

2. ThunderbirdPortableLegacy52_52.9.1 Other emails look good. Suddenly received the new email and it becomes plain text. Checked inbox online and tried emclient/outlook and all display the email in html. It also works on Thunderbirdportable 139.0.2. Really confused...

When I add any email that I receive from British Airways to my address book, Thunderbird does not hide the email address in the From display pane. I do not appear to have this problem with other accounts from which I receive regular emails. Could this be a problem at their end ?

can not send emails recently as about a month ago. Error message is :unable to authenicate to outgoing server. Please check the password and verifiy the authenticate method in account settings outgoing server . smtp not sure if i am doing this right? please help this old guy

I installed the update to Thunderbird as suggested this morning and my whole address book has disappeared. This is a major problem for me. Can you please tell me where it is and how to restore it to my account? Many thanks.

My messages displayed in Thunderbird are simply duplicated... I see a letter, and under it a reply with exactly the same letter. The date, time, and other data match. That is, two identical letters that were simply duplicated.