Thunderbird Community Forum

I am having an issue with retrieving my email in Thunderbird. On laptop, using Version 140.2.0esr | Released August 19, 2025. No changes were made to Thunderbird settings. The email is showing up in the Comcast portal, but for now having it forwared to a Gmail account. Tried changing password in Comcast (and in Thuderbird) to no effect. Tried deleting my Comcast email account in Thunderbird and re-adding it, but no change. Can send out email fine, just receiving it is the issue.

Interestingly, I use BlueMail on my phone and it, too, has the same issue and will not retrieve from Comcast. Thanks in advance!

I have an email account with BlueHost, which also hosts my web domain. A couple weeks ago I stopped receiving emails and contacted BlueHost tech support. The agent had no clue why I wasn't receiving email. She said "Can you please click on acocunt actions and remove the account and re-addd it. [sic]" I did that, and I was again able to receive emails. But then all my old emails -- sent and received -- had disappeared. BlueHost was able to restore my Inbox emails back to May 19, but was not able to recover any Sent emails. I have a backup of my Thunderbird directory from April, but would like to recover all of my old emails, which apparently still exist because my current Thunderbird Profiles directory contains files corresponding to deleted email folders. For example, my Inbox had a subfolder -- call it ABC -- that was deleted and is no longer visible in my Inbox, but I can find files ABC (no extension) and ABC.msf in my Inbox.sbd folder. My Sent.sbd folder also contains files ABC and ABC.msf. These folders are in C:\Users\aaa\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\aaa.default\Mail\mail.aaa.com (with "aaa" representing my personal identifiers). mail.aaa.com contains files Inbox, Inbox.msf, Sent, and Sent.msf, which seem to contain my old emails. (Inbox is 132,151 KB and Sent is 289,829 KB, and the file dates are from a couple weeks ago, when I removed and re-added the email account.)

Is there a way that I can recover the old emails?

Spectrum forced a password change and now I can receive but not send emails from TB. I have spoken with Spectrum support, been through everything suggested on both the Spectrum and TB forums --multiple times-- including deleting and recreating the account, editing the password, checking for typos, blank spaces, changing the TLS security minimum, running in troubleshooting mode, etc etc. and nothing has worked. I have TB 140.4.0esr on a Chromebook with ChromeOS 141.0.7390.135 and Debian GNU/Linux 12, no separate antivirus program or firewall but do have Malwarebytes. The only recent update was to ChromeOS but that was weeks before the problem developed. I have two other (non-Spectrum) accounts set up on TB and they work fine. I can send emails from Spectrum's website but this is not a permanent solution. These settings match those provided by Spectrum, although they only show SSL, not SSL/TLS.

Why is this folder SO LARGE !!! C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\6v2ccsvd.default-release\ImapMail

On my PC, it is over 3.5GB !

How can I minimize it !

I have a bunch of e-mail addresses in Unified folders, all of which are my own except one, which is for a relative on whose behalf I do a lot of things. I'd like to have that account show up completely separate from the Unified folders. Let's call that account X, for brevity.

I've favourited X's Inbox and Sent items, so I can show them outside Unified folders. So far so good.

In the Unified folders Inbox Properties, folders to search chooser, I unchecked X's Inbox and all its other folders.

This is almost what I want, except that X's account, with all its folders still all show up in Unified folders. I'd like to move them as well.

Is this possible?

I have two accounts with Thunderbird (*@talktalk.net and *@tiscali.co.uk). Each account will receive incoming emails (with or without attachments - single addressee or part of a group email). Periodically outgoing emails are blocked, with the error message 'Sending of the message failed. An error occurred while sending mail. The mail server responded: Reject for policy reason. Please check the message and try again.' Usually the issue seems to fix itself - this tome it has lasted longer than usual. Please can someone suggest a remedy? Tony

I can't send Free-online emails on Thunderbird/Macbook, although I can receive them (see Error notification attached). I checked the Outgoing server settings in the Accounts settings which seem right (relay.free-online.net). This has been happening for about a week. Thanks for your help.

Here we go again! After spending a couple of weeks trouble shooting this issue, I thought I had it fixed earlier today.

After using TB for a couple of hours, getting rid of duplicate messages, etc., I shut it down. But when I decided to check emails one more time, the ORIGINAL problem is back, it will NOT delete messages.

I deleted all earlier installs, and did a complete clean install of 140.5.0esr.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1548207

How do I make a backup copy of my Thunderbird email client, saving all the subfolders? I would like to then uninstall Thunderbird and then reinstall it, as a new user, and without losing any of my old user folders. Thanks. After I do this, will I be able to reload all the old subfolders and read those messages?

Hi, I'm using Thunderbird version 140.0 on Windows 10 and trying to change the background of the message pane. I've tried:

1. messagepanebox {

   background-color: #e6f3ff !important; 

}

but it only changes the upper part and I can't find a way to target the whole flex container or the lower part. There is a forum response (titled Message preview pane background) that targets the message pane:

1. messagePane {

background-image: url("file:///C:/path to image/image.jpg") !important;}

and that fills the message pane when its blank at startup but it disappears when selecting a message from the list.

I can add the background-color statement to :root in Developer Tools and that only works for the current selected message. How can I change the background of the entire Message Pane - the upper and lower part that contains the contents of the message - for each message that is selected? Thanks, David

This has just started to happen today. Each message I receive has the Message ID in the message pane header box underneath the date. Please explain why this is and can I stop this happening?

Probably my falt, the last version of Thunderbird got instaled on my PC. I do not like it, impossibility to read my message on the side of the screen, impossible to reorganise mails via there date after they reorganised themself throw sender order... So, I would like to go back on my old version, probably 143 or 144 ? Does anybody know how to do it without loosing all my data ? Thanks in advance... Pierre A. PS : Please forgive my english mistakes, beeing french does not have only advantages... ;-))

I am using Thunderbird across multiple devices. Generally this works well, but I recently created a new sub-folder in my Inbox whilst on my Thunderbird Android account (v13.0) and moved a number of messages into it. That sub-folder is missing when I return home and open my desktop installation (140.5.0esr 64-bit). At home I am running Windows 11 Pro v25H2.

Is there something obvious I can do to bring this sub-folder and its contents into my desktop Thunderbird set-up?

I tried adding the sub-folder manually on my desktop Thunderbird installation but the folder would not appear.

Help appreciated.

Hi! Downloaded Thunderbird on a newdesktop computer, also had it on my old desktop computer, I used to read the emails underneath the email title.

Now it comes on the right side of the screen, i dont manage to change it myself.

Regards Per Olsen

I have just had an upgrade to version 145.0 but cannot select any of the optional layout formats that I had in previous versions as they are all greyed out. Why is this?

Hello,

When I try to save attachments from emails directly on my Computer, they never arrive at the destination folder - not individual files nor "save all attachements". Although the procedure '(left button menu - save - [navigation through file system till to the destination-folder] - save here') is "normal" and does not give any error message.

I can only save attachements, when i first open them (e.g. in word), and save them from there in its destination folder. This is quite a complicated procedure .. one should be able to save attachments directly from Thunderbird, without opening it.

What is the reason for this problem? Are there any options, is it a local problem (but it is a brandnew Laptop) or is it a bug in Thunderbird?

Best, Renate Albrecher

I already have Thunderbird installed on a laptop. IS it possible to export my inbox and view the emails on a desktop without having to create an email account on the desktop?

bold text When in "Local folders" , I had icons for "New Message" and a spot that I could right click on to get new messages from certain servers or left click to get them ALL. Where did they go ?

FROM menu HELP

140.4.0esr (64-bit) Release notes Thunderbird for Linux Mintmint-001 - 1.0 Updates disabled by your system administrator You are currently on the esr update channel. Thunderbird is designed by Mozilla, a global community working together to keep the Web open, public and accessible to all.

Anthony