Hello, I use macos sonoma and my email provider is hushmail.com . I have version 115.18.0 (64-bit) of Thunderbird. I would like to get emails in Thunderbird as soon as they come. What setting should I use? I tried - Server Settings -> Check for new messages every 0 minutes.

I guess about then nothing worked correctly. You probably got no mail at app or only intermitently when you computer work from sleep or the like. Email is not SMS.

Lately, in the last 3-4 days, it has been really weird, the emails don't arrive in the inbox automatically. Just to give you an example, I looked in the inbox at around 9:00am and I had to click the download button (the one with the cloud) and I got messages that arrived around 7:30am. While writing this message I just upgraded to version 140.6.0esr (64-bit). Thanks

With IMAP mail accounts there is a setting in account settings to use push mail if it is available. I have no idea if hush,mail offer push notifications. I do not use them as a provider. But fundamentally you are mistaking email for some form of instant messenging system. It is not.

Any setting to collect mail on a frequency less than about 10 minutes will probably cause issues as the last fetch will still be running in the background when the next kicks off and overrides it, or the server just refuses the new connection (Hotmail used to just refuse connection attempts if it was less than 15 minutes since the last.) The time it takes to get mail is affected by many things, not the least of which is your choices regarding antivirus (I do not use one that scans mail) and the upload and download speeds of your connection to the mail server (IMAP involves uploads and can seriously lag on many consumer connections if the bandwidth is constrained by streaming etc.

I think you might be better using the iphone app that hushmail provide to get your notifications. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hushmail/id1008495364 I just googled this service which I have never heard of until today. You are not talking about getting email as such, you are messing around with receiving email notifications on your desktop that are simply available on your phone in the app. https://help.hushmail.com/article/702-get-notified-when-you-receive-new-email

Hi Matt,

Thank you for your prompt response.

> But fundamentally you are mistaking email for some form of instant messenging system.  It is not. 

I guess I am 😬. I was expecting some notifications that I have to act quickly upon receiving them. Anyway, you made me change my mental model 👍.

I didn't install the hushmail client app on my phone because I already have 2 email clients on my cell phone and I didn't like the UI (I checked it out years ago), but maybe that's what I should do. The truth is I like the desktop apps.

Thank you again.