Thunderbird Community Forum

First, I have very limited understanding of software. I need very simple explanations.

Here's my issue. I use Thunderbird on my desktop computer. I have used the Import/Export > Options > Backup Scheduling function to backup my Thunderbird email to my USB/flash drive. I have labelled the backup folder on my flash drive "Thunderbird email backup." That folder contains numerous subfolders including: 1) calendar-data 2) chrome_debugger_profile 3) crashes 4) datareporting 5) extensions 6) ExternalMailFolders 7) Mail 8) minidumps 9) saved-telemetry-pings 10) scheduled-notifications 11) settings 12) shader-cache 13) storage.

Again, these are the subfolders created/named by the Thunderbird Import/Export backup. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THESE FOLDERS MEAN.

Here's what I want - it's actually very simple. I want to be able to see (read) my backed up email on my flash drive without using the Thunderbird installed on my computer. I want complete interaction with the backed up email without my desktop Thunderbird - or my online email account - being involved at all.

My understanding is that Thunderbird Portable is supposed to be able to allow me to do that. I downloaded Thunderbird Portable (from https://portableapps.com) to my flash drive but when I tried to access it the first thing it did was try to force me to put in my online account (POP?) information.

I don't want to do that. I just want to open Thunderbird Portable on the flash drive and have it realize that all of my backed up Thunderbird email information is right there in the same flash drive. I want it to just access and use what's right there.

I was really hoping that Thunderbird Portable would simply ask me where to look - in a very user-friendly way! - and I could tell it to go to my "Thunderbird email backup" folder on my flash drive (WHERE ALL MY THUNDERBIRD INFO IS!) and it would simply do just that and provide me with complete Thunderbird service for the backed up email.

Am I missing something? Can someone give me a VERY SIMPLE walk through to do what I would think should be a very simple thing? Thank you. Chris (6/29/26)

PS - I've read the Mozilla Support ARTICLE: Thunderbird Portable (Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition) and other portable apps as alternatives (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1285834) and it alludes in general terms to exactly what I want to do but it does not give any step-wise instructions.

In Thunderbird, when reading an eMail, if the Junk or Delete button is clicked on, that eMail gets marked as Junk or Deleted. For either of those selections, the next message immediately gets automatically opened without someone clicking for that to happen.

Our Suggestion is to change the Junk and Delete button features so that only marking an eMail as Junk and deleting it happens, without automatically opening the next eMail. Also, when deleting an open eMail, change it so that deleting it is all that happens, without automatically opening the next eMail after deleting one.

It's very odd. Normally moving an email, say from the Inbox to the relevant year's archive, takes "no time at all".

Which is true for all the mailboxes shown on the attached screenshot, EXCEPT for the four at the bottom. Moving even one message from Inbox to Yiddish can take ten seconds or longer (with the dreaded "Not Responding" occasionally). Moving something in the opposite direction is also screwy, only from those four.

I had thought that it was because they're rather large. This first started when there were just Yiddish and MSW, and I split off most of the earlier years into the archives shown. To no avail.

It's only an annoyance, but I'm puzzled about how such a thing could happen.

Also very slow tagging or untagging a message just in those mailboxes.

I currently have the following:

Mozilla Thunderbird version 152.0.1 (64-bit) installed on a Windows 11 Pro computer. Within this installation are five E-Mail accounts configured and working.

I have selected Export for Mobile.

On Android (Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra - 5G) One UI Version: 8.5 Android: 16 Kernel: 6.1.145-android14-11-33419968-abS928USQS6DZF2

Thunderbird Version: 20.0

I click on the Import Settings: Try to scan the QR Code from my laptop which says 1 of 2 QR Codes and I get nothing. No pop-ups, no approvals, it just sits there. Clicking done takes me back to the main screen.

End user here, with Thunderbird for years, now on several machines that I use. Keep getting the warning window about "ESR" change. I have no wish to re-install Thunderbird, on each machine, nor to go beyond the normal updates. Can't tell which "channel" I need to choose. Unwilling to just guess. Could re-install on all five machines, if that's truly necessary. Hope not. An explanation of the simplest way to dispose of this issue, is the help I'm looking for. I think I'm currently set to the lower case address. And arranged such that each machine updates to the current content.

I would like to set up an existing Gmail account in Thunderbird.

The following window appears: (see Image 1)

I click the next button, and the next window is: (see Image 2).

How can I sign in to Google? Perhaps in a different way?

Over the last couple of weeks, TB comes up with a message "System Integration Use Thunderbird as the default client for:" with "Email", "Custom Thunderbird links (net.thunderbird)" and "Always perform this check when starting Thunderbird" options checked.

I check set as default and get "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\uninstall\helper.exe'" and "Windows cannot find 'C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\uninstall\helper.exe'. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again." (screen shots attached)

As you can see, I was just accepting the settings. not sure why it's looking for helper or to uninstall? Sorry, can't find the app menu in TB with instructions provided in the line.

Thanks!

I'm a new Thunderbird user and my question is the simple one typed into the "Summarize your question" box. There doesn't seem to be an appropriate topic, so please excuse the "off-topic" topic.

TIA, Allen

IIRC, there was a discussion some time ago that a repository for .deb packages would be made, similar with we already have for Firefox. There was any development in this question?

My Message Source displays text in very large Liberation Mono. I can't find a setting anywhere, including Advanced Preferences. Where can I change that?

Liberation Mono is the font I have set for monospace in different languages. Since it is not the default, there may be a connection there.

Also, since yesterday when I reply to certain HTML messages, the font used for quoted text is again large size Liberation Mono. I haven't changed anything, so I suspect it's a bug in new 152.0.1.

I had difficulty getting my thunderbird email to open. Then, when it did open, it uploaded all emails in duplicate. I now have a very full inbox in both my accounts. How can I get thunderbird to remove the duplicates? It would take forever to do this manually.

After I open my Thunderbird email and use it for 15 to 20 minutes it freezes. I need to close it and I get a message Thunderbird is not responding. I then need to close the program using Microsoft to close the program.

Windooze 11. TBird 152.0 installed on June 20th. Now it seems like TBird is not displaying HTML emails properly. They are displayed but not at the beginning. The first line is sometimes just the bottom half of a sentence in the email (if that makes sense). I can't scroll back to the beginning. If I go to outlook and display the same email it displays fine.

Did something change in 152.0 to cause this?

Thanks, Ed Mazurek

I used to have Thunderbird on this laptop and was using Microsoft Office 365. I have since stopped using it from GoDaddy. I uninstalled the old Thunderbird and reinstalled a new version. I am trying to enter the new server settings but I keep getting the old Office 365 settings showing up. How do I get rid of that and find the new settings page to enter the new settings?

All my old email accounts are showing up and I only want to add 2 to the new Thunderbird. I thought uninstalling would delete all the old stuff. Please help.