Thunderbird Community Forum

I have an 8 year old PC that I have been using Thunderbird on its entire life. I have 5 email accounts (from my own website if that matters) on it for personal use that have tons of information.

I bought a new computer and have not been able to move my old data to it. The old computer uses Windows 10 with Thunderbird Version 115.5.2 (32 bit). The new computer uses Windows 11 and I have tried several Thunderbird versions with the current one being 128.12 0esr (32 bit). I have added one of my email accounts to my new computer, but it contains none of my previous data (emails, contacts, directories, etc.), just a bare bones account that only receives new email.

I have repeatedly tried to move my entire source computer setup and data going through all of the described steps including copying the previous Thunderbird folder to a flash drive. I then follow the directions for copying and pasting my source data into the new computer's "roaming" section. It goes through all the steps including asking if I want to overwrite existing files. I have almost 14,000 files and as the process continues, I can see file names being added just as I would expect.

After everything is complete, when I restart Thunderbird, the only access I have is once again to the bare bones new email account. There is no data, nothing at all, from my source computer.

Help please, this has gotten beyond frustrating.

Hi everyone I use Thunderbird Portable on an external SSD. I switch between a Windows 10 and a Windows 11 computer. On the Win11, I am experiencing some issues. When I run TB, sometimes the app "loses memory" and it opens as the first time, although the local folders seemingly should have all the emails (some folders have appropriate date and time, and the total size of the folder is OK). But I have no possibility to recover these emails. I tried to import them, but there always is some problem. I tried to copy all the folders in a previous (working) backup copy of TB, but still doesn't work.... how can I fix this?

I'm aware of the many caveats regarding use of 'Repair Folder'. It's widely known that the results are...inconsistent, to put it charitably. Nevertheless...

I keep vast quantities of messages in local folders. For some of those folders, I manually archive the contents annually, by creating a new folder with the name of the year ("2025"), then dragging messages from the existing folder to the new folder. This sometimes works. More often than not though, it fails in one way or another. Sometimes I drag them across, a handful of them show up in the new folder, but then the rest just sit there in the old folder, in selected state, but with no activity taking place. Sometimes merely selecting smaller 'chunks' of messages to drag across will work. In others, such as last night, even that didn't work.

I then invoked 'Repair Folder' in a vain attempt at recovery; sometimes that will clear the issue. However, when I did this, what happened is that the chunk of messages that were selected wound up having all their date fields (in the display) reset to near the epoch - January 20, 1970. When I view the message source, the dates are correct.

I'm unable to find a way to recover from this.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2 Thunderbird 128.11.1esr (64bit)

I was searching for an email that I had just deleted and discovered that the Trash folder connected to my inbox was empty. The one connected to my Local folders, however, was not. I cannot find a setting that would instruct Thunderbird on how long to save emails in the Trash folder and am sure I did not accidentally change anything. Any idea how to fix this?

I have 2 accounts in TB. In one of them Thunderbird has a folder named 'Junkmail' but on the server the folder is called 'Spam.' Thunderbird is not allowing me to rename the folder.

Any reason for the discrepancy?

James

We’ve been experiencing ongoing issues with our email accounts:

Several accounts keep showing repeated error messages. Every time we refresh, the error reappears, and we’re unable to send or receive emails. Sometimes it resolves on its own, but the issue recurs multiple times throughout the day. Please see the error screenshot attached below for reference.

Hello, I have recently been unable to create new messages in Thunderbird. I am currently on the latest version, 139.0.2 (64-bit). There is no Create New Message Button, and Control + N does work either. I am also now getting a lot of extra information in the Header Pane. Refer to the Screen Shot JPG. Thanks, Graeme

Many of my mailboxes on the IMAP server just emptied. They were still there in my Ubuntu '.thunderbird' ImapMail directory. I have created some replacement mailboxes in 'Local Folders' and copied mbox files from the ImapMail area to the Local Folder area, removing the .msf files just created by Thunderbird. I then used the Properties->Repair Folder on each of the the new Local and filled-in-the-background mailboxes. Many worked fine and I was able to repopulate the IMAP server mailboxes using drag in Thunderbird. Some, however, were mis-parsed, producing 'From-less' and Subject-less messages containing part messages. Thunderbird seems unable to reliably parse mbox files created by itself. I note that they are not strict mbox format, having a '-' instead of an envelope address on the delimiting '^From ' line. (I am a retired Unix SysAdmin, so used to the command line)

Has anyone had this problem where the headers download but you CANNOT see the contents of the email? If so, has anyone found a solution to being able to see the contents. Centurylink email support is a joke.

GOAL: I am trying to get off of Centurylink but I have lots (OVER 20 years) of important (health and support group related) emails (thousands) that I would like to retain the full contents to and move the mail to my live.com account. I figured out how to set up the other account on Thunderbird already but can not get the full email on my primary Centurylink (Q.COM) account to download. I think I configured the download options correctly but am not sure. See attached.

Thanks in advance!

I have used Thunderbird for years on my desktop computer with a gmail account. I have many "Contacts" in my Address Book.

 I recently added Thunderbird to a new laptop computer.  The laptop Thunderbird does not "see" my contacts or address book.

. . . . I am not going to re-create my entire Address Book in the laptop by re-typing thousands of contacts!!!!!!!

Hello, I want to delete all incoming gmail messages. I have set up a filter but instead of deleting them it puts them in the Trash folder.

Is this the expected behaviour?

Cannot delete e-mails from inbox. Cannot move them to Trash. Will copy only a few into trash and not remove them from the inbox. Emptied trash, compacted inbox. Read your suggestions, not help. Using Windows 10, latest version, Thunderbird 139.0.2.

I set up a sub-folder to my INBOX. Named it PRIORITY INBOX. Used message filters to send 3 e-mail addresses to the new inbox. It worked, then something changed and it stopped working. Incoming messages from those 3 addresses don't show up in PRIORITY INBOX. They also don't show up in INBOX or JUNK or TRASH. They don't show up anywhere I can find. Then I deleted all three filters, then deleted the PRIORITY INBOX. Now no messages show up anywhere from those three addresses. HELP!

Until recently the search message function displayed a count of the number of finds down in the bottom left hand corner of the screen. Now the number flashes on for a second or two and disappears. To know the results of a search now, I have to sit and watch until the search is complete otherwise I have to way of knowing how many were found. Has anyone had this happen and found a solution?

Hello Following a recent thundebird update, the body of certain emails contains a list of links to images rather than the images themselves that appeared before. The screen looks crowded, confusing and unattractive. How can I revert to the old, much more attractive appearance ? I have searched but can find no help. Regards

Ich kann keine Nachrichten mehr erhalten und und kann auch nichts mehr absenden. Es wird immer wieder ein Passwort bzw. neues Passwort verlangt, das war all die Jahre nicht. Auch ein Passwort wird nicht angenommen. Hab schon alles ausprobiert.