Thunderbird Community Forum

When I try to send an email, I get the following response. Sending of the message failed. An error occurred while sending mail. The mail server responded: invalid user ID or password. Please verify that your email address is correct in your account settings and try again. Have looked in account settings and cannot see a password anywhere. Email address is correct Help please Carol

I'm using gmail/outlook/hotmail email addresses on a new win11 laptop with Surfshark VPN and getting email up & running is the last major set up issue. I am having issues with both send & receive emails across all addresses. I get some functionality if I pause the VPN (not ideal!) but not total. I have tried the Surfshark bypass function for Thunderbird but without success.

I have had no issues with this setup for many years on win10.

Using Outlook (one email address) on the web with the Surfshark Chrome extension I can both send & receive.

1. what should the IMAP & SMTP server settings be for gmail/outlook/hotmail? 2. are there any known issues with Thunderbird/Surfshark? 3. are you aware of any issues with gmail/outlook/hotmail blocking Surfsahrk?

Alan Burdis

I would like a view by Year option in the Thunderbird Calendar. Since Microsoft Calendar tries to launch Outlook and setup a new email address when you try to use just the Calendar it has become not useful to someone who does not use Outlook. You can get the Calendar app to launch into the Calendar on the 4th try but it's inconsistent and a pain. I was trying to check a date/month by displaying the Year view with the 12 small monthly calendars like the Microsoft Calendar has and found you cannot do this. I'd prefer it as a feature rather than a plug-in. Thanks

Subject: Persistent Column and Folder Layout Issues — Not Being Saved Between Sessions

This is a follow-up to my previous support requests regarding two ongoing problems that significantly impact daily usability.

Column Settings I manage multiple accounts, and my preferred column layout is: Starred, Read Status, Attachment, Subject, From, and Date/Time. I do not use Threads, Correspondents, or Spam Status columns. Despite setting these preferences repeatedly, Thunderbird fails to retain them. Every day I must spend time reconfiguring columns across some or all of my accounts — the state varies unpredictably from one session to the next. This is a persistent, daily frustration that costs meaningful time. Most other major email clients save and reliably maintain column preferences. I'd expect Thunderbird to do the same.

Folder Panel Layout Two problems occur regularly when Thunderbird loads:

Folder order — Standard system folders (Inbox, Sent, Drafts, All Mail, Trash, Spam) should appear at the top of each account. Instead, Sent, All Mail, Trash, and/or Spam are frequently scattered among custom folders, with no apparent consistency.

Folder expansion — Most or all folders load in an expanded state, exposing every nested sub-folder regardless of whether they contain unread mail. This creates unnecessary visual clutter and requires manual collapsing each session.

Again, this behavior is uncommon in other widely-used email clients. Summary These are not one-time glitches — they recur daily and represent a significant usability gap. I'd appreciate confirmation that these are known issues being tracked, or guidance on a reliable fix. Reformatting the interface every morning is not a reasonable expectation for users.

When I get spam email in my inbox, I mark it as SPAM. It will arrive again in a couple of days. Why does it come into my in-box still? Its marked as SPAM in my In-BOX!

I don't want to keep touching junk email!!! its a huge waste of time. I cannot find the settings on how to make that action happen.

Please advise. If this isnt possible I will unfortunately be leaving your platform after decades of use. Yes I have donated several times over the years. Not get rich money, but it all helps.

Dean

Dear all,

For aprox. 3 weeks now Thunderbird asks me a short time after startup for a login.

It shows up a dialog with the text : "https://caldav.gmx.net verlangt einen Benutzernamen und ein Passwort."

The problem is, that I maintain several GMX - accounts and I've no idea, which credentials I have to enter :/

How can I find out ( without inspecting or debugging the source code ;-) )

THX in advance and best regards!

I've been a Thunderbird user for years without problem. However, since May 22, three specific messages continually reappear after deleting them from my Inbox.

I keep my Inbox empty and it stays that way, except for these 3 messages. Removing them from the Trash folder has not solved the problem.

My email provider is netaddress.com via POP3 account. I signed on to look at my inbox on their site via a browser, and the messages aren't there.

I have tried repairing and compacting the inbox, but the messages continue t reappear.

Do you have any other suggestions?

TIA.

ChuckM

Using Thunderbird with Spectrum email (an old roadrunner address). Changed the outgoing server to the following: Server Name: mobile.charter.net Port: 587 Username: Reefside@cfl.rr.com Authentication: Normal Password Connection Security: SSL/TLS Testing connection fails. I have tried different combinations and once in a while I get that the connection is successful, but email sending hangs and never completes.

I have been using Thunderbird for years with no problems. However recently, Thunderbird very often simply stops responding. Sometimes it just hangs up and sometimes the program bar at the top displays "Mozilla Thunderbird (Not Responding)". If I try to wait for it to respond, it literally hangs for several minutes before it begins to respond again, and often, it simply never starts responding again. It has simply gotten to the point where Thunderbird is practically unusable. All my other application software continues to work with no problems. It's just Thumderbird.

The version number in this submission may not be correct. I can't provide the real version number because of the hangups.

Any suggestions?

Hi all,

I've been using Thunderbird for eons but yesterday morning it started freezing up constantly.

It freezes up ("Thunderbird is not responding") every time new emails are received or any time I take any action while the Inbox folder is open. So, if I delete an email it freezes for a few minutes. If I do anything pretty much, it freezes up for a few minutes. Then it comes back and I can do another action, and it freezes again. This only seems to be happening when I have the Inbox open - if I go to other folders it seems to function normally.

Things I've tried without success: - Troubleshooting mode - Adding exceptions for my profile folders to Windows Defender - Compressing Inbox (and Trash and Junk) - Repairing the Inbox index

This doesn't appear to be a memory issue - right now, memory use for my entire system seems to be hovering at just over 50%. But Thunderbird is still freezing.

My Inbox folder is very large, but it's never been an issue before and nothing significant was added yesterday when it started failing.

Any suggestions appreciated!

Thanks

I've been seeing a doubling of *some* incoming messages, where a duplicate message comes very soon after the first one. For example, two incoming messages were received at:

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 14:03:10 +0000

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 14:04:31 +0000

So the second message came in about 1 minute and 21 seconds after the first, and not because of anything I did (as far as I know). But then that was it, no third message came in.

This isn't really a bug, as nothing is harmed, just a repeated message. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I transferred my Win 11 T-bird system to a new Win 11 computer using the T-Bird instructions re Profiles etc. The system transferred and operates on the new computer, BUT the last six years of e-mails and my current address book and calendar did not. The calendar that transferred was from 2014 to 2020 and the addresses were also from 2020. The current email addresses and up-to-date calendar didn't transfer. How can I make sure my current data transfers. I still have my old computer with T-Bird installed?

My inbox folder costently says it has more messages than it displays (I can see the missing ones by searching). I have tried repairing it, looking at filters, etc., but nothing seems to work. See picture. Thank you!

Hello. Some email addresses are no longer being delivered and are not appearing in my spam folder.

This started about three weeks ago with just one address. Now, I know of at least two.

Emails from these addresses that I used to receive and delete have also disappeared from my spam folder.

Does anyone have a solution?

Last week I started getting the attached pop-up

I don't use Calendar on Thunderbird (as it does not sync ) Not sure why this has started ..... I have tried putting in password and ticking the remember box - but it still keeps popping up.

Yesterday I had to change my Spectrum email - I have an old road runner email address and swapped over to spectrum.net server from the old server. In this process I had to update my password to access the server.

When I updated per the instructions from Spectrum I was able to do a normal download into my Thunderbird inbox. This triggered me having to input the new password. I did check the box to update the password and save it. After the one time download I cannot get Thunderbird to download emails. I can send emails with no problems but cannot download. No way can I get a download - it does not on initialization, at the set time nor with the manual request.

Spectrum is no help - their web mail works and it's my problem. I realize this is an old system, legacy and all that - anybody got a magic fix?

Any idea on how I messed this up?

Thanks.

Can`t install on my account [edited]@hotmail.com I just create yesterday. I can read outlook program. There is something wrong I don`t know what top do. Therese Driscoll# * Numbered list item

I've been using T-bird since nearly the beginning, and I've always been able to search for a string in a message by hitting the slash ("/") and typing my search string. This appears to be a shortcut for Ctrl+F (on Windows, currently Windows 11).

With T-bird 151.0, when I press "/" it is ignored... the first time I use it. If I press Ctrl+F and do a search, then I can start all subsequent searches in that message with a slash. If I close that message and open another, I must again use Ctrl+F the first time I want to search.

My muscle memory constantly forces me to type "/<string>" to search, but since T-bird ignores the slash, the following characters immediately take action, usually causing me to navigate away from the message, mark them as read/unread or as junk, etc.

Since I can use "/" on subsequent searches, I'm thinking this is a bug, not a feature removal. Can this be checked/confirmed? ...thanks!