Thunderbird Community Forum

After a recent update to Thunderbird (months ago), I found that when I search through my emails by name, it will find those emails and list them for me. But when I go and click on one of those found emails, it arbitrarily brings up some unrelated email - it never brings up the one that I click on.

How can we fix this? Thanks. Dr. Howard Neufeld

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!

(If this is a duplicate, please feel free to delete. I posted last night, but the question appears to have vanished from the forum.)

I'm using Thunderbird 151.0.1. After 151.0.0 was installed, the ability to press "/" ("slash") to search while viewing a message was broken. The slash is ignored, and following keystrokes are then acted upon.

If a search is initiated by pressing Ctrl+F, subsequent searches can be started with a slash. It's only when the first search is done that the slash is ignored.

I've been using Thunderbird since the beginning, so starting a search with a slash is in my muscle memory. As a result, I've inadvertently marked or archived or starred messages, navigated to the next thread or next unread message, etc.

Looking at the release notes, I see that a search function was fixed in 151.0.0. I wonder if this is related to that fix?

In any event, can "press slash to start a search in the message window" be restored? ...thanks!

When using the Quick Filter bar to search emails, only a partial list of results is displayed (approximately 2-7 messages). Switching the view from Table to Cards and back to Table via the top-right menu causes the full result list to appear instantly. Similarly, resizing the message list panel triggers the same refresh. I have already tried creating a new profile, but the issue persists. Has anyone else experienced this behavior, and is there a known fix or workaround?

Hi,

I use the quick filter option very often. I use this to filter my message list by sender I'm a bit "tired" of constantly copying the sender e-mail address -> then pasting it into the quick filter field.

I am looking for an option like "Quick filter by this sender" or something like that Does anyone know how i can achieve this?

Some years ago there was an excellent extension from trusted contributor alta8888 called TotalQuickFilter (https://bitbucket.org/alta8888/totalquickfilter/wiki/Home) but unfortunately it was discontinued

In a newsgroup I have a message containing the word 'werewolf' in its body. If I do a control-K search for 'werewolf' I see 'No messages match your search'. In the left of the display I also see 'Filters From Me (0) To Me (0). I don't know what this means and I don't know why the search couldn't find a message containing 'werewolf'. If I do a control-shift-K search and select the 'Body' button I see 'No message found'. The control-shift-F search will not look in message bodies. Why can't I find the message that contains the word 'werewolf'? What am I missing? Alan.

Hi, Thunderbird search as we know is and always has been megabroken. I search for "4.91" and it does not find anything even though there are e-mails with that string in subject and body.

Isn't it about time to fix it?

Hi,

Can you please have a look at the following problem: I decided to re-index my mails. after I realized that the search results did structurally not contain any messages from 2026. I deleted the global-messages-db.sqlite. However, this did not lead to the desired result. After processing some folders, I can see in Activity Manager that the indexing stands still after having processed about 20% of the "Sent Mail" folder of a gmail account. I waited more than 12 hours, but the number of indexed messages did not increase. The file size of the global-messages-db.sqlite at this moment is only 2.3 KB, while the original database was more that 300 MB large.

I already tried the following without success:

1. restarted TB
2. deleted the database for the second time
3. restarted my PC
4. repaired said "Sent Mail" folder

I am running Thunderbird 140.9.0esr on Windows 11.

Many thanks in advance for your replies.

Thomas

Hi, Address Book Search doesn't show any results for example Phone Numbers or Addresses.

Search for Phone Number 030 shows: No contacts found - which is not true! Search for Address City Berlin shows: No contacts found - which is not true!

Please improve the search, so that it considers any contact detail.

Thank you in advance.

Best regards blueice_haller

if i use the search function thunderbird find nothing although hundrets of the searched mails available are.

example i got 100 Mails from insurance Allianz Direct if i put allianz in the dialog Thunderbird find nothing i tried it via strg shift F it is the same

what shell i do?

best regards

When I search for a name in Thunderbird mail e.g Lennart, nothing from 2026 comes up, only older mails from 2025-12-31 and backwards. if I search on his e-mailadress, e.g l.name@ppost.se it finds avery mail. What is wrong?

After converting from Outlook to Thunderbird, I can see there are 23 unread mails in my Inbox. My problem should have a very simple solution, but I cannot find any. How do I filter my messages in the Inbox to show only those unread???

Bjorn B. Juvkam