Thunderbird Community Forum

Hello,

After updating Mozilla Thunderbird to the latest version, I’ve encountered two significant issues across multiple computers running Windows 11 PRO:

• Missing unread message indicator – Upon receiving new messages, there is no red marker showing on the Thunderbird icon in the taskbar. This makes it difficult to quickly identify unread emails without opening the application.

• Email links not opening new message window – Clicking on an email address (e.g. in a browser or another program) no longer opens a new message window in Thunderbird, as it used to.

Both issues have been observed on different machines, which suggests they are not caused by specific local configurations.

I’d appreciate it if you could let me know whether solutions for these issues are available or if an update is planned to address them.

Kind regards, Maciek

День добрый! Был архив почты, который всегда открывался. Сегодня почта пуста, нет писем и ничего более. Проблема вся в том, что я когда-то работал в компании, которая уже закрылась и больше не работает, а почту использовал как базу данных. Теперь у меня нет доступа не к почте, не к базе данных. Что делать в такой ситуации?

I do not like the latest version. I used to be able to tap on "Get all new messages for all accounts" (or similar) and I would get all messages for my 5 accounts. Now I need to tap on the thunder cloud image and then tap on the Inbox for each of my addresses. So much more work involved. Not happy!

I don’t see the “Open in Conversation” option when I right-click a message. It simply doesn’t appear. Also in the Message menu on the toolbar, the “Open in Conversation” is missing too.

Interestingly, if I click on something like “1 reply” to expand the thread, then right-click one of the messages inside, I do get options like “Open Message in New Tab” or “Open Message in New Window” but still no “Open in Conversation”

I’m using Thunderbird version 140.0.1 on Windows 11

Thanks

Is it just me or is Thunderbird not a particularly polished product? It's been around for years and by now one would think it would be so 5 star cutting edge that no other client could possibly touch it. In my experience, not so.

I had TBird many years ago and then became an early adopter of cloud based email. I used the provider's interface. I now use three email providers and thought that going back to TBird would help me concatonate all of my accounts in one easy interface. While it has done that, why has it taken so long to configure?

i'm an expert user. I always configure my accounts manually with non-default ports, etc,... I know what I'm doing. It took me a few hours to figure out how to configure them all in TBird AND make them work. I should have been able to have all accounts setup and operational in 15 minutes or less. What I'm finding is that TBird functionality is not very intuitive. I've even had to resort to doing online searches to find out how to do things. That does not speak well for what should be a very mature product. It's not as if Mozilla does not have resources to develop a professional product. It seems that they let the product be developed and then forget about quality control and gaining user feedback with focus groups. if they did this, TBird would be known as very mature AND POLISHED!

Another area I'm having nothing but issues is the calendar. Like email it should be an easy process to connect Tbird's (app) calendar with an external calendar and have it operate two way. I've been trying to connect my TBird calendar with Apple calendar so that I can have a reliable calendar on my iPhone. I wouldn't have to do this if there was a TBird iOS calendar app. The fact is that two weeks later and I'm still putzing around with it trying to make them talk to each other. The online help is virtually useless. There is a lot of old information. How do I know this? The instructions say to look for something and then that something is not in the current version of TBird. Then I have to go at it solo and try to figure it out.

Also, I find the TBird interface a little dated but more important not at all intuitive. Trying to do simple things like compose a new message takes time to figure out. Yes, I finally found the "Ctrl N" command, however, I am now so accustomed to graphics interfaces that I resist going back to Ctrl keyboard commands. I'm not new at this game, I've been around PC's since the original IBM PC that ran IBM-DOS so command lines and keyboard commands are nothing new to me. I simply don't want to use them any more. TBird forces me to do that. It's as if the developers are all stuck in the 80's-90's and don't really want to take this product into the 21st Century.

Don't get me wrong, it's a very good product from the back end, however, I have distaste for anything that forces me to change my workflow and that is what has happened. I don't mind making some changes, however, going back to TBird makes me feel as if I'm starting all over learning about email and calendars. I'm a professional. At one time I enjoyed hacking and making things work the way I wanted. Those days are gone and now I need tools that work out of the box as I value my time.

Tbird needs is a LOT OF SPIT AND POLISH for it to be regarded as a product that can be used easily by professionals, neopites and everyone in between. At this time, it doesn't hit that mark.

Running Thunderbird 140.0.1esr (64bit) on Windows 11 Dell desktop.

Have had two active mail profiles running for years, one for each of us in the family. Some weird things are taking place now.

This afternoon when initiating Thunderbird by selecting Thunderbird icon on the task bar as always do, Thunderbird began going directly to my profile, not bringing up the 'Thunderbird - Choose User Profile' window. This has happened previously and I got instruction on the forum how to resolve, so I did that resolution again.

I ran Thunderbird.exe -p in the RUN box .

It bought up the 'choose user profile' window so I UNCHECKED the box 'use the selected profile without asking at startup.' I guess somehow it got inadvertently checked. I expected this to resolve the problem. Note: When the box came up the first time I did NOT notice the names of the profiles offered, ours or the default ones mentioned below.

Now, when I initiate Thunderbird by selecting the icon in the task bar or selecting the icon on the desktop or selecting Thunderbird in the START list of apps -- it still goes directly to my profile not bringing up the 'Choose User Profile' window. HOWEVER, when I enter in the RUN box either thunderbird.exe or thunderbird.exe -p it brings up the 'Choose User Profile' window.

BUT -- the profiles offered are default and default.esr. They are not our two profiles we have been running for years. Our two profiles are still in the Thunderbird Profiles directory as seen with File Explorer. Hovering over default and default.esr shows their respective paths to the Thunderbird Profiles directory. (Cannot edit these paths.) But using File Explorer, these two profiles (default and default.esr) are NOT seen in the Profiles directory at all.

Question: 1. How do I get Thunderbird to function correctly. That is, when selecting the Thunderbird icon it brings up the 'Choose User Profile' showing our two profiles, and when I RUN Thunderbird.exe in the RUN window it ALSO shows our two profiles in the 'Choose User Profile' window, and NOT that default and default.esr profiles which I don't even see in the Profiles directory.

One more thing -- I have been thinking of switching over and installing the Thunderbird Release Channel -- If I installed it, would these problems carryover or would they be resolved? Thank you.

Added this note: In the past when the box 'use the selected profile without asking at startup' got inadvertently check and I resolved the problem by running thunderbird.exe -p, I was not running the Thunderbird version I am running now. It was back on 9/22/24 and I forgot what version it was but I don't think it was the ESR version back then. Maybe that is why running this command worked back on 9/22/24, but getting weird results now with the current esr version running. Thank you again.

In Thunderbird 140.0.1 in Windows 10 the New-Message window font size is too small. Zooming in solves this problem but the zoom setting is not retained and needs to be repeated for every new message composed. Editing font settings in Settings > Config editor does not solve this problem.

I am unable to modify the font color that I see in a email. However, it shows for others. And it copy/pastes - I can change a sentence to blue, it will appear to me black, I can send it to another and they see blue; copied to me I still see black. I can copy the text and put it into word, alter it, put it back in Tbird and it all seems black to me all along, but when I send to another, they see blue. (I should maybe put it in a text editor to inspect code there???)

But I think a clue is - apologies if this is a misdirect, but just before noticing all this, it happened that when I used Constant Contact to send me a test email, the background color of that newsletter is clear -- no color. MORE, when I lookup old emails that had the same background color, while once they were colored, they now appear all clear to me. More, when I go to the gmail server, those test emails look fine there. Others receiving the tests fo not have the color problem. Oh, and the "real" newsletter also still has the color problem, when sent to me and viewed in Tbird.

SO. It is a my-Tbird problem.

I have tried to follow old threads, looking for old settings regarding color and overriding; cannot do it.

I am using Tbird 140.0.2

Can anyone please help me? THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

Also, tried the window-closing order-of-operations thing (for font color change) but it's really not that at all....

Also, following others' threads, I got into a colors setting and tried resetting that to default but the problem persists.

I'm an IT consultant trying to help out a poor client of mine who suddenly has been getting tons of nasty profane spam. Her email address must have gotten on somebody's bad list because this just started happening after years of relatively little spam. It comes in huge bursts.

We had turned to Thunderbird because it was supposed to be good at isolating spam. But no matter what I do, it won't move ANY spam to the Junk or Bulk folders. Yahoo uses Bulk so I told Thunderbird to use that folder. I also told it to use SpamAssassin. It is EXCELLENT at marking all these emails with the little symbol for SpamAssassin, but it doesn't automatically move them. And there's no rule system that can move them. I've tried it at the local level, account level, every possible setting, and the old ones stay in the Inbox and the new ones go directly to the Inbox. I've even turned off antivirus to see if that was interferring.

I really don't want to give up Thunderbird, but this isn't working and it's the reason we came to Thunderbird. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Thunderbird v. 115.10.1 (64-bit) Windows 10

Several months ago I experienced Inbox email loss whenever I clicked "Compact now" in the "Compact folders" dialog. After a couple of occurrences I trained myself to only click "Remind me later" thus avoiding the email loss. Today I goofed and clicked "Compact now". Many important opened and unopened emails disappeared from my Inbox as a result. I waited a while to make sure Compact folders had completed the operation but no lost emails reappeared. I shut down and relaunched Thunderbird but no lost emails reappeared. I don't know if any of my other folders have experienced this email loss.

My most recent backup will restore some of what was lost from my Inbox. But not the new unread emails.

What can I do to prevent this from happening again? Can I disable "Compact folders" completely so the problem never re-occurs?

I haven't upgraded to Thunderbird 116.0 because my backups are from v. 115.10.1 and I have experienced problems restoring Thunderbird with a previous versioned backup.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

I have Thunderbird - 32 Bit Version 128 installed on Windows 10 Pro

The problem I have is 11 email account with messed up nested folders under each accounts that simply won't move to their intended locations.

Is there a way I can export each email account and it's associated folders then reorganized it without having drag and drop it?

I'm looking for a way to get this done quickly. I appreciate an feedback to this.

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).

Hi, When the big update happened with Thunderbird 115, I started having a ton of problems, which I posted about on this forum at that time. It seemed too complicated to resolve, so I've just been forcing TB to quit when I get the "Thunderbird is not responding" message. I've done that hundreds of times since November, 2023.

Now I want to use a newer computer and thought I would install the latest version of TB. I wonder if I have corrupted my profile by all the force quits. Should I create a new profile and just start from scratch?

I'm really hoping the current version doesn't have a ton of bugs and that I don't have to spend hours on this project.

Thanks, DD