Thunderbird Community Forum

I am having a problem with Thunderbird in that, seemingly at random, Thunderbird stops responding for a few minutes, then it deletes all but 2000 emails locally from my inbox, then, after a while, it re-downloads them all from the server. I have 96973 messages in my inbox on the server.

The email server in question is mail.yahoo.com

I am unable to recieve mail on thunderbird for the last several days. I am receiving the message "Alert from account xxxx@comcast.net: Temporarily blacklisted IP Address - try again later (comcast is my mail provider) where is this message coming from and how do I clear it. I use a VPN and have shut that off but has not fixed the issue. I have the same VPN running on my Iphone and am able to still recieve messages via the Iphone mail client... Any thoughts?

Hello,

I am requesting assistance with a persistent issue in Thunderbird involving a Google Workspace (Gmail) account for my domain, dantanas.com.

Incoming IMAP works correctly. However, outgoing SMTP authentication fails every time.

Symptoms

The Google OAuth login window never appears when Thunderbird attempts to authenticate SMTP.

Sending mail produces the error: “Unable to authenticate to Outgoing server (SMTP). Please check the password and verify the authentication method.”

IMAP works normally, but SMTP never prompts for OAuth authentication.

Thunderbird also does not allow me to have a Junk/Spam folder for this account — the option appears disabled or unavailable.

Current configuration Thunderbird is using

SMTP Server: smtp.gmail.com Port: 465 or 587 Security: SSL/TLS or STARTTLS Authentication: OAuth2 User: max@dantanas.com

IMAP Server: imap.gmail.com Port: 993 Security: SSL/TLS Authentication: OAuth2

What I have already done

Verified DNS MX and DKIM records on the domain (email receiving works).

Confirmed I can log in to the account in a browser with no issues.

Tried both port 465 and 587.

Removed and re-added SMTP servers in Thunderbird.

Forced Thunderbird to attempt OAuth2 authentication, but the OAuth window never appears.

Tested other clients, which authenticate correctly — suggesting the issue is specific to Thunderbird.

Expected behavior

Thunderbird should open a Google OAuth browser window to authenticate SMTP. This never occurs, which prevents SMTP from working entirely.

Request

Could you please advise:

Why Thunderbird does not open the Google OAuth authentication window for SMTP?

Whether there is a known issue affecting Google Workspace OAuth in Thunderbird?

How to reset or repair Thunderbird’s OAuth behavior?

Why Thunderbird does not allow the creation or use of a Junk/Spam folder for this account?

Any guidance would be appreciated. I’ve spent considerable time troubleshooting, and resolving the OAuth prompt issue is essential for SMTP functionality.

Thank you, Max Makowski max@dantanas.com

Recently I have noticed some changes in the way my Thunderbird downloads POP3 messages. Previously, it would be common to ask for new messages once a day and receive upwards of one hundred of them. But in the last month, this number has been limited to about 35 at a time. If I ask immediately again, I get about 35 more, and this pattern continues as long as there are messages in queue waiting to be downloaded. I am not sure if this is due to changes in gmail, where most of my received messages originate, or to changes in Thunderbird itself, or to some sort of third-party hack. Now that I have trained myself to keep on asking until there are no more messages coming down, this change does not cause me much difficulty, although initially it sometimes caused me to overlook messages because I failed to keep asking as long as I should have. Apart from that, it does not seem to be harmful as far as I can tell. I'd just like to know if other people have noticed anything similar, and if anyone knows what is causing it, and whether it has some hidden advantages over the way things used to work.

I've been wanting to access Thunderbird's encryption ability on both my laptop and desktop. However, in setting up Tbird on my laptop I notice the user Profile should stay on one computer. Can I use the same Profile on more than one computer using the same source and password? Can I open a new profile on a second computer, even though I would have to use the same email source, a local provider? If not, is there an online source of email data I can use on Tbird on my laptop. Thanks much, Bruce Bartrug

Running Thunderbird 140.5.0esr

This has been happening for a few weeks now somewhat randomly. The folders under Mail for one of my accounts keep moving around and are not in alphabetical order anymore. Most folders are OK, but a few either jump to the top of bottom of the list. I can manually drag them back, only for different folders to do it the next time.

The folders in questions are 2 levels down from Mail.

The folders in my "LOCAL FOLDER" file usually have been in alphabetical order. As I have added new folders to store emails, the new folders have not been put in alphabetical order in the "LOCAL FOLDER" folder. They have been added to the end of the original list after the "Z" items. How do I re-alphabetize the whole "LOCAL FOLDER?"

"Could not get folder db" is the message. I've tried all the suggestions that google provided - nada

Windows 11 25H2 (OS Build 26220.7271) Thunderbird 145.0 (64-bit)

5 accounts are defined. Some filters work on startup, but new ones do not. Manually running filter results in "could not get folder db"

Hi Everyone,

I am very excited about the new PDF signature feature in Thunderbird, awesome to not have to do this externally.

However, I am still trying to find a way to streamline a common workflow for me: I get a an email with pdfs attached where I need to insert signatures in a few places and send this back. My current workflow is the following: i open each pdf attachment, add the signature, save it to a file, and then open the email reply and reattach the correct files and all of them. It is this indirection via files that actually created the biggest headache for me, as it's a bit too easy to mess up here.

I also tried going via the "reply with attachments" extension, to have the reply email with all attachments already, but there seems to be no way to then edit them in thunderbird.

Am I missing something obvious for how to do this? Given that I am surely not the only one doing this, I am hoping someone has already figured this one out?

Antoine

Thunderbird shows the number of emails downloaded but I can not see them in my inbox, or anywhere else. Using Thunderbird 115.5.2 (64-bit) on an older iMac on OS 10.12. Email account is gmail, and using POP. I've tried 'repair folders" with no change. I've deleted old emails from the Gmail server. Would appreciate any help.

I have Mozilla Thunderbird installed, the Yandex mail instructions say - The server name is imap.yandex.ru and the server name is smtp.yandex.ru . with such constructions, the mail does not arrive. Mozilla uses ru - com instead by default and everything works, but it feels like it's wrong because everything slows down terribly. If I change to ru, the mail does not work. https://disk.yandex.ru/i/7V9_I1XwoBLPiQ

Why can't I send outgoing email on my BT Premium email account from within Thunderbird, when the Norton VPN. I get a timed out or policy block message. Somewhat perversely, it works when the VPN connection is on. although you warn that VPN connections may be rejected.

Any info or ideas?

Hi there. This morning the Customized Menu Bar in my T-Bird was there, as confirmed by my wife... and then it wasn't. No idea what happened. I spent a long while poking around to try to find what had been inadvertently changed, and came up empty. So, went in to Customize Toolbars and rebuilt the Mail toolbar as I recalled its layout, as we use it a lot every day. Now it seems to be fine. T-Bird is kinda like Windows, where there's more than one way to do something, and sometimes several paths to the same function. I know there are new Keys, or whatever they're called, that replace or replicate the old Customized Menu Bar. But we have been using T-Bird for ages, and though I've noted all the updates and improvements over the years, we are pretty comfortable with the basics that we use, and have not made many changes. So, we're OK. Just thought it was weird what happened. Thanks for being there. Greg Moehl

Config editor has no printer listed. nothing to reset. Printer works with other applications just not TB. Re-installed the printer. Reset the space limiters, which I found were set too low. Restarted TB and computer

Hi,

we use Thunderbird for several business e‑mail accounts (for example info@… and similar), all configured as IMAP, and the same mailboxes are used by multiple people on several computers. Our mail server hostname is nickel.studio4web (Studio4web hosting).

We have noticed the following strange behaviour of messages (usually customer orders):

A new message arrives normally in the “Inbox” folder.

After some time, for example the next day, the same message also appears in the “Trash” folder, but it is still visible in “Inbox” at the same time.

We checked the headers; the Message‑ID field is exactly the same in both Inbox and Trash, so it looks like one and the same mail that exists in two folders at once.

In Thunderbird Server Settings we configured the delete behaviour so that messages are either moved to Trash or removed immediately (we tested both options), and after that we ran Compact on both the Inbox and Trash folders. However, some messages still remain simultaneously in Inbox and Trash.

We know that other team members open the same accounts in other clients / on mobile phones or in webmail, but we are not sure whether that alone can explain this double appearance of the same message (Inbox + Trash).

For example, two order emails from 03.12. were in Inbox only on that day, and today we see them also in Trash, while they are still in Inbox. No one remembers explicitly deleting them.

Questions:

Is this behaviour normal for IMAP in Thunderbird, or does it indicate some bug or wrong configuration?

Is there a way to prevent a single message from being present in both “Inbox” and “Trash” at the same time (so that it is either only in Inbox or only in Trash)?

What else should we check in Thunderbird settings or on the mail server (filters, special IMAP options, automatic cleanup, server‑side rules, etc.) to avoid such “duplicate” messages?

Environment:

Thunderbird version: 140.5.0esr

Operating system: Windows 11 Pro

Mail server / provider: nickel.studio4web (Studio4web hosting)

Thanks in advance for any help and advice.

Good afternoon, I am using Thunderbird for many years now. In the last ~2 years I have seen several times the subfolders of the mail folder disappearing from the list on the left panel. All of them are correctly subscribed. I would like to know if there exists a way to recover them different from deleting the account and recreating it. I am currently running Windows 11 Pro 25 H2 with Thunderbird 145.0.

Did anyone experienced such an issue? Thanks Riccardo

Hello,

I have a MacBook Air M2, and I'm experiencing energy usage issues related to Thunderbird. This has kept happening for a long time now actually, surviving through at least two Mac OS updates, and a huge number of TB updates. Everything's up to date. I tried to follow this: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1269944 and this: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Testing:Memory_Usage_Problems?_gl=1*86dj4d*_ga*MTkzNzQ0MjA3MS4xNzYyOTY4OTMx*_ga_2VC139B3XV*czE3NjMzMTM3NDckbzIkZzAkdDE3NjMzMTM3NDckajYwJGwwJGgw but didn't succeed. Actually, in my case, the issue is more noticeable: I normally have TB open in background - sometimes everything's fine, and the battery goes down as normal, while sometimes instead the battery drops quickly, and checking in the Mac activity monitor I can see that the CPU usage of TB is totally abnormal. When this happens, I can actually see the activity bar in TB being live (bottom right corner, as it happens when TB is checking for new mails), but never disappearing. When I notice it, I just reboot TB, and the bar shuts off as normal after a quick mail check. Moreover, checking the 24hr energy usage by app, TB is often on top with nonsense values.

I tried multiple times to rebuild the database, and do most of the tricks suggested, but didn't fix. Yes I have a huge mail archive, but the problem is not the standard management of this database: basically it seems that every now and then, TB decides to run some activity which it gets stuck in, and this kills the CPU.

Thank you in advance for your help!