Windows 10 reached EOS (end of support) on October 14, 2025. If you are on Windows 10, see this article.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More
Open

Thunderbird hangs trying to download email. "downloading message 1 of 140"

Thunderbird Email and messaging
Lin replied 6 hours ago
fred.bohle
fred.bohle

Thunderbird will display older email, but will not retrieve new email. It puts up a message "downloading message 1 of 140". That second number continues to grow. It was 76, then 138, now 140. I cannot retrieve new email. That email address is [redacted] @att.net.

I suggest you reply to me at [redacted] @gmail.com.

Fred Bohle

Thunderbird will display older email, but will not retrieve new email. It puts up a message "downloading message 1 of 140". That second number continues to grow. It was 76, then 138, now 140. I cannot retrieve new email. That email address is [redacted] @att.net. I suggest you reply to me at [redacted] @gmail.com. Fred Bohle
Attached screenshots

Modified by James

All Replies (1)

Lin
Lin
  • Top 10 Contributor

- What version of Thunderbird?

- Who is your email provider?

- Is this an IMAP or POP3 account?

I've seen it happen when a single message is corrupt and the server chokes on it. A potential fix is to use web mail to move all Inbox messages to a temporary folder, then move them back to the Inbox in small batches, fetching mail with Thunderbird between each move. Eventually the corrupt message can be identified. 


move all messages to a
Ask a question

You must log in to your account to reply to posts. Please start a new question, if you do not have an account yet.