what happens if you turn off your iphone. Their IMAP connection has no governor so they will actually consume ALL available IMAP connections to the point sometime where other applications can simply not connect.

Have you rebooted your device? often when things like anti virus half crash things still work but very very slowly..

No it makes no difference turning off my iPhone or shutting down my PC and re-starting it.

Start *Windows'* safe mode with networking enabled - win10 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/change-startup-settings-in-windows-10

Still In Windows safe mode, start thunderbird in safe mode - https://support.mozilla.org/kb/safe-mode-thunderbird

Does problem go away?

If it does not go away, is it using much time while trying to download messages, how much cpu is thunderbird.exe process using?

Hey Mark! Where'd you go? Why no reply?

What antivirus does you have installed? And if it is McAfee, does disabling McAfee at tools | addons | extensions help? (please tell us)

Sorry I'm away from my laptop latter this week I will try, I have Avast anti virus, there is also Microsoft antivirus installed on the laptop but turned off.

Ok I've checked and the only thing in extensions is Lightning. At the moment it is downloading one or two every ten mins, I have tried turning off Avast! But it makes no difference. I have over 300 emails to download.

I have started thunderbird in safe mode and there is no difference

I've tried safe mode in Windows then opening thunderbird, it just stated that it could not connect to thunderbird. Then I returned to normal mode and nothing has changed

" it just stated that it could not connect to thunderbird."

I do not understand what this means. Please post a screen shot. see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-create-screenshot-my-problem

I have just followed your instructions for safe mode selecting network and it appears to have worked, well 300 emails downloaded in 2 mins. Need to wait to see if it works out of safe mode, thank you

Sorry I just realised that I got the solution from another question being asked about the exact same question the answer being to open Windows in safe modes by clicking widow key and R then boot and then network, restart and open Thunderbird while in Widows safe mode. It appears to have worked.

> 300 emails downloaded in 2 mins. Even that seems a little slow - if your message sizes are not large,i.e. average less than 100k.

Is this a pop account? What type of connection, and what connection speed, are you using?

That will have disabled your firewall and anti-spam. So a starting point would be to assume one of those is causing the slow down.

We generally recommend to set anti-spam and anti-virus NOT to scan incoming email, as it fights with Thunderbird's internal processes. Your AV should still catch malicious material in attachments when you try to open or run them.

I didn't actually time the 300 downloaded messages, it is a pop account I have fibre and up to 100 mo, although when I test it's generally 75 down and 25 up, just tested and it's 107 down and 108 up at this moment.

Just when I thought it was fixed. I turned off my pc and when I turned it back on the problem has returned, it states that I have 90 emails to download, after 5 mins I have gone to safe mode and very quickly downloaded them, they are all old emails That I deleated. They were marked as read on the server too. I have now deleated them again. I have been having the problem of having deleated emails return to the inbox for sometime and found that by going to the server and marking as read and quickly emptying the deleate box I could eventually succeed in getting rid of the emails.

1. press alt+Crl+Delete on your keyboard
2. Select the task manager.
3. Open the startup tab.

Something in there is your problem. (Hint Avast, Firewall, Anti Spam) Disable startup items one at a time and reboot until you locate the correct one that allows you computer to function normally. You can then enable all the others again.

Wayne Mery said

Start *Windows'* safe mode with networking enabled - win10 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/change-startup-settings-in-windows-10 Still In Windows safe mode, start thunderbird in safe mode - https://support.mozilla.org/kb/safe-mode-thunderbird Does problem go away? If it does not go away, is it using much time while trying to download messages, how much cpu is thunderbird.exe process using?

Yes the problem goes away in safe mode but returns when I return to normal mode. Cup? Where do I find this info?

+ R In the run box type msconfig. Click on the startup tab... disable the non MS startup items and reboot. Still having an issue?

when I do that I'm it tells me to "use the start up section in Task manager" when I go there I see a list of app. I have tried to copy and have taken a screen shot of them but although I have the screen shot on my desktop I can not attach it to this message, I have converted to a PDF but that doesn't work. copy paste here also doesn't work. What are the non MS start up items?