Thunderbird Community Forum

I spent hours yesterday deleting and moving to local folders over 6,000 emails. Today they are all back! They appear to be all greyed out as if I had read all of them, and the ones I moved to my local folders seem to all be there in the folders I moved them to, in addition to still being in my inbox. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I'm running Thunderbird 140.5.0esr (32-bit) on Windows 10 Pro Build 19045. After the last few updates the columns in the email listings are changing widths from what I've set them, this seems to happen after I close then reopen Thunderbird; which I'm having to do more often these days to resolve weird calendar malfunctions. For instance, the data column would appear so narrow that only the month/day show with "..." at the end, when I know I've looked at this yesterday with the full view of the date and time showing. I've reviewed my options and I've set them individually, set them globally and it makes no difference. Of course I've rebooted, etc. I have over a hundred local folders and they all change differently, of course some look the same but others don't. Most have the same column headings selected but it doesn't seem to matter. Some have the "Correspondents" column selected but many don't.

This is very irritating and I'd like to know why Thunderbird is doing this, and more importantly, how can I prevent this behavior in the future. Thanks,

After providing my existing twc.com email address and other requested information, Thunderbird did a search and came up with "The following settings were found by probing the given server." I used those settings and attempted to create a Tbird-based account. I got this error message: "Thunderbird failed to find the settings for your email account." Which seems odd since Tbird provided those settings by searching the server. What can I do now? I hate to go back to MS Office but I need email and I've spent two days trying to figure this out, including a couple of hours on the phone with Spectrum (they were just as baffled as I am). I still can't use Tbird for email but pls email me at [edited from community support forum] @twc.com and I can access it on my old MS Office computer.

My "old" laptop (Windows 10) failed & refused to turn on ever again and it's been replaced by a new laptop (Windows 11). Long existing Email served by Mozilla Thunderbird has been loaded into new laptop but all that was loaded was about 6 current unread Emails in the Inbox and NOTHING in either Address Books (should be 30 or so in each) and NO FOLDERS (should be about 15 - 20). I own & run a business so all of this data/info is crucial but because the data currently lies within a laptop that died it appears it can't be retrieved by "normal" procedures. I need help here - lots of it.

Cheers and thank you. Pam E Victoria Australia

Hi

Just checking when ThunderMail and Pro will be available? I'm in need of email services for my small business and just don't want to subscribe to Google. I love Thunderbird, glad it survived so many transformations over decades and would like my subscription contribute to further development.

Can you, please provide me with at least estimated timeline?

Thank you S

Scary behavior of 'Local Folders': I'm moving an IMAP account from one server to an other. I copy all emails from old server IMAP account to a place described as "Local Folders". I then delete the account connected to the old server. WTF: the the local folders to which I copied the messages are now GONE. My plan was to recreate the account to the new server, then copy messages from LocalFolders to IMAP. But the LocalFolders got deleted along with the IMAP account. This I was doing in a separate profile from my own, as it's for a friend I'm helping with a hosting move.

In my own profile: For more than a decade, I have been maintaining the size of my mailboxes, by moving older messages to LocalFolders. As it happens, for these, I did indeed direct the folder to a separate drive, which also gets backed up offsite. My concern is that 'Local Folders' are portrayed as being INDEPENDENT of IMAP accounts. This is VERY POOR design, to allow a user to delete data they thought was safely stored locally while they recreate a moved or misbehaving account. I have dozens of Local Folders. Five years ago, I abandoned an entire domain name and it's email accounts. I know I still have those emails in my local folders despite having deleted the IMAP accounts from my profile. I fear that the current version, by default, might not be so respectful of my data. Can someone please explain? Where are the links that TIE an IMAP account to Local Folders, and how do I sever that link?

In my case, the source account still exists. I can repeat my steps, but for some other unfortunate users, this may not be the case.

I have a Hotmail account and multiple gmail accounts. When I try following your (obscure) instructions for changing passwords, the box of passwords is only for my gmail accounts. None for my hotmail.

As Hotmail is very important to me, I'd like to keep accessing it through TB but you make it tough.

I am now not receiving my Hotmail mail and as I get too much traffic 200+ msgs a day, it will build. Please send simple, direct instructions on how to find and change the hotmail password, thank you.

Yesterday, out of the blue, one of my Spectrum email accounts asked me to sign in. I tried entering my existing credentials several times, but failed to sign in. I tried to recreate the account, but, it fails each time with "Thunderbird failed to find the settings for your email account". I tried using the account hub and it fails with the same message, with a sub message of "can't find a server".

I've been on the phone with Spectrum 5 times in the past 24 hours. They claim that it's a Thunderbird problem since I can access the email in question if I go through their web interface.

Can anyone help with this?

The task notification dialog does not show up, when Thunderbird starts and a task is overdue. It did so until some time in the autumn 2025.

The dialog shows up if Thunderbird is running when it is time for the reminder.

Is this changed behavior or a bug?

Best regards Gorm

Ive got appx 10-15 accounts in thunderbird about 5 or 6 DONT rememeber or keep the passwords (for gmail)... others do (for gmail)

Ive got it set as I recall for imap, but when I open thunderbird I get the google popup to sign in (it does as Ive got the PW right) but it never remembers those ones and constantly keeps asking me wither if I leave thunderbird open or if I close it and reopen it... again the PW's are correct as it DOES log in just for some reason thunderbird isnt saving or remembering them anyone have any idea as to why ? thanks in advance !!

Address sidebar CONTENTS disappears after turning on to forward or send a message, The sidebar is still there but empty of addresses, which do appear for about a second on opening the forward message tab.

thank you Ron Herron

I am trying to create my outlook.com account in Thunderbird. I see the Account Hub box, and have typed in my email address. But when I type in the password, I get an error message, "Authentication failed. Please check the username and password". It then says, "Exchange auth error". I have checked and double- and triple-checked the spelling in the email address and password, and signed in to my email via the Microsoft outlook.com page using the same email and password. I can sign in to my email using the latter method, but Thunderbird keeps giving me the same error message and won't create the account in Thunderbird. What am I doing wrong?

When a message is removed from a folder via that folders' Retention Policy, is the message permanently deleted or does that message go to Trash? I use Thunderbird with Gmail via POP. Thank you.

Thunderbird Version 140.7.1esr, Build ID 20260123195141 User Agent Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:140.0) Gecko/20100101 OS Linux 6.1.0-33-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.1.133-1 (2025-04-10) OS Theme Xfce / Adwaita Application Binary /usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird-bin

Having a problem with an ATT POP account. TB stopped getting mail. After a minute and a half or so (wish it would time-out faster), I get a pop-up box in the top right of the screen that states: "Connection to server inbound.att.net timed out" and then quickly goes away.

Deleted passwords and cannot see where to create them again, as it never prompts me for new ones.

Thanks.

おとといからYahooメールの受信が出来なくなりました。 その前にはいつも通りできておりました。

Thunderbird上で起動時の送受信時にPOPサーバーへのログインに失敗しましたと表示されます。 パスワードを変更した覚えもなく、いつものパスワードを入れましたが、ログインできず送受信が出来ません。

こんな感じですが、よろしくお願いいたします。

How do I import *.ICS file in a reasonable amount of time. I have appointments in an ics file of less than 1 K in size, typically 700 - 800 bytes in size and they take HOURS to import and do not connect properly then to allow editing the appointment. This is from Baylor Scott and White, a major hospital system in Texas. If there is a problem with the imported file structure, please point me to the correct file structure. I like Thunderbird, but this part of the calendar is very frustrating. Clarence