How to stop Thunderbird from constantly trying to check email

This article may help: https://kb.mozillazine.org/IMAP:_advanced_account_configuration IMAP checks mail periodically by default.

Hi David,

Well, I read the article, but didn't really understand it. I guess there's no way to stop TB from checking for email every 10 seconds or so, and giving me that error message (which blocks part of the tool bar for files I'm working with).

Maybe I'll see if I can switch back to POP for that email address. The other email addresses that are POP don't have this issue.

I found a question from 2019 about this, which seems to say you can't just switch from IMAP to POP. There are a lot of instructions about how to copy emails to a new account. I also found this: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/faq-changing-imap-pop

So, if you have any other tips on how to keep my emails, I'd appreciate it. Luckily, I haven't had this email address for too long, so it doesn't have thousands of emails in it!

Thanks, DD

I noticed that the error message you posted was for a POP account being refused access Maybe thunerbird doesn't know you're offline. Try clicking File>offline . I think that may stop your problem. If thunderbird knows you're offline, it shouldn't be attempting to connect. Let me know how that goes.

You can usually fix this by going to Thunderbird’s **Settings → General → Network & Disk Space** and checking the connection settings. Under **Account Settings → Server Settings**, disable “Check for new messages at startup” and “Check for new messages every X minutes.” If you want to stop automatic checks completely, make sure both options are unchecked for each affected email account.