Thunderbird Community Forum

On 28 August I received a blank email with just the sender and subject showing. Since then I have sporadically received completely blank emails, with no sender or subject, while others are arriving as normal. The same is happening when I open Thunderbird on my mobile, but not on my laptop which has an older version installed. It would seem that the issue is caused by update 153.1.1esr, as that was released on 28 Aug.

Can I revert to a previous version of Thunderbird or is there another way to fix this, thanks.

This morning Thunderbird asked me to update which I duly did. Once done all messages started disappearing from inbox. Eventually I found them and moved them back to inbox only for it to happen again

Have now tried 3 times, same result, every single email from Inbox keeps being moved to deleted in Local Folders

All new emails that have come in since appear for a micro second in Inbox before being moved to Deleted

This is obviously not a great situation to put it mildly and as it has never happened before and started straight after this morning's update I can only assume that the update is to blame

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Brenton, GPS Imports Team

This was mistakenly posted in the Firefox stream. Amended with apologies.

The latest Snap update on my Kubuntu laptop is marked as a BETA version. I haven't selected the BETA stream, and I checked and snap seems to be pointed at the stable version.

I like to keep track of changes at each install and there's no Release Notes available.

Is this an error at your end or do I need to change something to get back to a stable version?

My Thunderbird, from Debian is:

140.13.0esr

I've often wondered what the point of 'extended support release' (I think) really means. It sounds retrograde. Should I switch/upgrade?

Just updated to the latest version 153. No drag and drop ... message shown is 'Unspecified Error'. I made no changes when updating to this latest release. Appreciate some guidence. Thanks

I am trying to switch from the ESR channel to the release channel. I have Thunderbird 143.13.0esr and am trying to upgrade to 153 (not ESR). When I upgraded, Thunderbird could no longer find the inbox for my primary email and I had to restore both Thunderbird 143.13.0esr and my email library from my Time Machine backup.

I am seeking advice on how to do some cleanup of an inbox anomaly so that I can install 153 without losing my inbox.

Details follow:

My primary email account has had an oddity in Thunderbird for years in which I have two inboxes: an active one with lots of email messages as well as subfolders, and an inactive one which is empty and no subfolders. I have tried deleting the inactive one by selecting it in the sidebar and choosing File, Delete folder, but that command is gray.

By poking around in my Library, Thunderbird, my profile, Mail, my pop account of interest, I discovered the inactive inbox is named Inbox and has only two files, "Inbox" and "Inbox.msf". The active inbox is named "Inbox prev" and has these files: "Inbox prev", "Inbox prev.msf", and a folder "Inbox prev.sbd" which has a bunch of files and more subfolders. All of my four email accounts have multiple folders and subfolders, but I was able to identify both my primary email account and my active inbox from various folder names that were unique to that account and inbox.

Today I followed the following procedure:

1. Quit Thunderbird (and all other apps) 2. Force a Time Machine backup 3. Download Thunderbird 153 for English, US 4. Verify the SHA hash 5. Install Thunderbird 6. Verify the signature 7. Launch Thunderbird

Both my active and inactive inboxes in my primary email account were gone from the Thunderbird interface. I checked my library and the files appear to still be there.

I proceeded with the following remediation:

8. Restore Thunderbird 143.13.0esr from Time Machine, replacing the 153 version 9. Restore the Thunderbird library folder from Time Machine

I launched Thunderbird and my inbox has been restored to the UI, but I am on the esr channel and not the desired release channel.

Is there any kind of manual cleanup I can do to get rid of the inactive inbox, rename the active inbox from Inbox prev to Inbox, and then re-upgrade to 153?

Using Windows 11. I try to update from ESR (version 140.13) to the release path. It concludes with a pop-up saying I must "reboot to finish a Thunderbird de-install" (or words to that effect). I reboot and it hasn't done anything. Version 140.13ESR is still present and if I repeat the update to release, the same thing happens.

I fear if I use the W11 tools to de-install Thunderbird altogether before re-installing TB from scratch, I'll lose all my existing email.

How do I do it?

I am on release 140.12.1 esr and there appears to be no new updates available. If so, what release should I be on and can I just download and install to get back on the latest release

Updating on June 20, the existing Thunderbird version in a flash of a second was replaced by a new blank one. All files and settings were lost. I needed an expert who (at cost of course!) managed to roll back the program with all files and settings as they were. This was a disaster, how can such effect happen? Right now I do not trust the updates anymore and will not implement new updates.

"Hello, I am using Thunderbird version 140.12.0 ESR 32-bit. I would like to install Thunderbird Setup 152.0. What are the advantages? Disadvantages? Is there a particular installation procedure?"

My folder header has many extra icons that when click do nothing -- happened when updating to 152.0 (and I need to hit ALT several times for the command line to appear to be able to "view folders" Tbird doesn't load to them automatically ! )

Here's a screen scape -- note the "what looks like a document" goes on and on and on if I scroll right

A few weeks ago my installation of Thunderbird on my Windows 10 laptop was version 151. I want to stop it from being updated, and I asked AI for help. It suggested the following:

1. Create a directory named "distribution" and locate it as follows: C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\distribution. 2. Within that directory, I was asked to create a file named "policies.json" and I did so. 3. Within that file, I was asked to place the following: {

 "policies": { 
     "DisableAppUpdate": true 
  } 

} and that's what I did.

When I had a look under Settings > Update, there was a note to say that updates have been prevented by the administrator. (That would have been the effect of what I just did.) That was a few weeks ago.

So, when I looked at my version number today, I saw that my version is now 152. It had updated, and the directory and file I created are now no longer present.

It seems that the update process deletes anything that shouldn't be there and doesn't trouble itself with the file I created.

How do I stop Thunderbird from updating my installation?

Hi! I'm hoping you can help me! I use Thunderbird, and have for many years, and I love it. My computer is on its last legs, and I'm trying to save up for a new one, but, yesterday I did something possibly stupid... (yeah, I know, you NEVER get people asking for help who've done stupid things, so this will be unusual... lol). Anyway... I turned my computer on and got a popup saying that my Thunderbird needs an update and it's been a while since I updated, so I hit OK on the update... Well, my arsehole of a computer chose that exact minute to shit itself and die. When I tried restarting it, my Thunderbird no longer works. Now I have a popup with a big red X that says "The installation seems to be corrupt. Please check your hardware and disk setup and/or re-install." Can you help me? I desperately need to check my email and have one I need to send. I don't know what to do. I've also got YEARS worth of emails sitting in the system, so I can't risk losing them, either. Please help. L.

My reddit post is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Thunderbird/s/lM11YcRIIT

Hello,

I'm confused and slightly concerned.

Through no deliberate action by me, Thunderbird DOWNGRADED itself from the May 2026 standard release version to an AUGUST 2025 ESR(Extended Support Release) version.

UPDATE: the next application restart brought the ESR version up to date, but why was I forced onto the ESR version?!

What could have pissibly triggered this? I don't want or need ESR, and without knowing the cause, I have e no guarantee it won't happen again. Worst if all, everywhere I look, there is zero explanation for this. It appears to be fairly unprecedented.

My original installer for 102.15.1 was downloaded from the official Thunderbird site in 2025.

The sequence of events:

• I've had Thunderbird version 102.15.1 installed for awhile, but wasn't using it.
• Ysterday I opened it and connected an account.
• Today I noticed it hadn't auto-updated, so I went into the settings and clicked on the 'check for updates'.
• this brought it up to v115.10.1.
• Its success was demonstrated by me being sent to this URL after it opened: https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thu.../?locale=en-US&version=115.10.1&channel=release&oldversion=102.15.1(https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/115.0/whatsnew/?locale=en-US&version=115.10.1&channel=release&oldversion=102.15.1)
• An hour later, I closed Thunderbird completely hoping it would fix a sync that appeared 'stuck'.
• When I re-opened Thunderbird, I saw the small "updating" window. It was pretty surprising since I had *just* updated.
• After Thunderbird opens, after this additional "update", the URL that I'm sent to is this: https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thu.../?locale=en-US&version=128.14.0&channel=esr&oldversion=115.18.0(https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/128.0/whatsnew/?locale=en-US&version=128.14.0&channel=esr&oldversion=115.18.0)
• Thunderbird changed to a year old ESR version!

Very simply as per the summary, every time I hit restart to update and then do another Help/About it ends up back with exactly the same result every time and while I downloaded the latest version available for download and installed it, it does not come up with 150.0.1 but the same as above.