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In the Move Thunderbird data to a new computer article, it says under "An alternative method for Mac":

"CAUTION: Do not open Thunderbird again on the original computer - unless you repeat the process in reverse to transfer the folder contents back to the original computer before opening the app. (If you forget, you can manually check one version against the other to ensure important messages are retained, but it's messy and time consuming.)"

It's not entirely clear to me why this would be an issue, but it makes me wonder if that would make the following use case problematic:

1. The user already has Thunderbird on "Computer A" set up, and wants to copy their Thunderbird profile onto "Computer B" to get the same setup and email accounts on both computers. They intend on using both "Computer A" and "Computer B" simultaneously. For simplicity's sake, let's assume all email accounts use IMAP, so emails are synced with the server, and thus simultaneous access between multiple clients is possible.
2. The user follows the instructions to copy their Thunderbird profile from "Computer A" to "Computer B".
3. The user opens Thunderbird on "Computer B" to make sure everything is working (let's say it's working and emails are syncing to "Computer B").
4. The user then opens Thunderbird on "Computer A". Their expectation would be that they would see the same emails and settings as on "Computer B". If they composed/moved/deleted an email on either computer, those changes would sync and be visible on the other computer.

Would this be an issue? Or should the user just start anew on "Computer B" and manually sign in to all of their email accounts again?

Title: POP3 mail delivering into Archives/Inbox instead of real Inbox — folder appears mis-flagged as special Inbox

Thunderbird version: 152.0.1 (Windows 11)

Problem: After migrating my profile to a new computer (copying the profile folder and profiles.ini, both with relative paths), new mail for a POP3 account (server1, account1) is being delivered into a nested folder "Archives/Inbox" instead of the account's real top-level "Inbox".

Evidence gathered so far: - Real Inbox: mailbox://ABC@savba.savba.sk/Inbox — only 1 message, effectively untouched for weeks - Archives/Inbox: mailbox://ABC@savba.savba.sk/Archives/Inbox — 31,186 messages, 10.9 GB, actively receiving new mail (confirmed with a test send) - Both folders display the same "special Inbox" folder icon in the folder pane - Neither folder can be renamed (rename option greyed out on both) — normally only true special folders are rename-locked - Account Settings shows only 3 legitimate accounts (POP3 savba.sk, IMAP Yahoo, Local Folders) — no hidden/orphaned account pointing at Archives - No message filter is causing this (only active filter is an unrelated SpamAssassin rule) - Identity's archive_folder pref is set to .../Archives (not .../Archives/Inbox), so this isn't the manual-archive-target setting either - Checked prefs.js directly: no mail.server.server1.* pref names an explicit "Inbox" folder path, so the special-folder designation doesn't appear to live in prefs.js - Renamed folderCache.json to force a rebuild — did not fix delivery, and also temporarily broke the Send button in compose windows (fixed by restoring the original file) - Ran "Repair Folder" on Archives/Inbox — only rebuilt the message index (.msf); did not change where new mail is delivered

Current hypothesis: The special-folder (Inbox) flag seems to be stored per-folder (likely inside each folder's own .msf index or an internal DB row) rather than in prefs.js or folderCache.json — which would explain why neither cache rebuild nor folder repair touched it. Two folders under the same account appear to carry this flag simultaneously.

Questions: 1. Where exactly is the special-folder (Inbox) designation stored, if not in prefs.js or folderCache.json? 2. Is there a supported way to clear/reassign this flag from a specific folder via the UI or Config Editor? 3. Could deleting just that one folder's .msf file (Thunderbird closed) force it to regenerate without the incorrect flag, without affecting the 31,186 messages in the mbox file itself? Is this safe?

Happy to provide further logs or additional prefs.js excerpts (redacted) if useful.

Thanks in advance.

Witam serdecznie mam problem z kontem darekkowalski@konto.pl mam zajęte 97% i nie mogę tego zmiejszyć już odistalowałem pocztę wyczyściłem i nadal to jest to informacji przesyła skany mojego problemu proszę o pomoc jak to zrobić dziękuję Dariusz Kowalski

I'm new to Thunderbird so can you explain what is the status of a Local Folder, please. Does it count against the email allowance? and How can I move emails from a Local Folder back to the main folders, please?

Each time I open TBird, I get a message at the bottom left of the screen telling me that TBird has deleted X number of messages. I do not want TBird to ever delete any messages. How do I turn this automatic delete function off?

Hallo, ich habe gesehen dass ältere Mails in meinem Posteingang zwar noch von der Überschrift vorhanden waren aber wenn ich drauf klickte waren die Mail leer, ohne Inhalt. Ich habe dann den Rechtsklick gemacht und auf reparieren gedrückt - jetzt sind diese Mails ganz aus dem Posteingang verschwunden!

Ich hab nun im Internet ein bisschen gelesen, da wird davon gesprochen die msf (?) datei zu suchen und diese zu löschen. Und beim neuen öffnen von Thundermail würden dann die Mails alle geladen werden...Ehrlich, da traue ich mich nicht so wirklich dran, löschen hört sich immer so "böse" an...

Zur Verdeutlichung: ich habe den reinen Posteingangsordner und in diesem Posteingangsordner liegen viele Unterordner als seperate Ordner. Und eben diese separten Ordner die als Unterordner im Posteingangsordern sind dürfen NICHT gelöscht werden!

Also Hände davon lassen oder kann da nichts passieren?

Danke schonmal für Eure Hilfe.

I have changed Thunderbird E-mail account from IMAP to POP3. My question is, How do I get all my E-mail folders from the IMAP into the new POP3 account. Nothing followed the changed accounts formats.

Good morning,

I’m reaching out because I’m having trouble with my Thunderbird email and need some assistance.

I was using Thunderbird without any issues before, but now all my old emails have disappeared. I can still receive new messages, but I’m unable to send emails like I used to. I also can’t recover or view any of my previous emails.

It seems like something may have reset or become corrupted, and I’m not sure how to restore my old messages or fix the sending issue.

Could you please help me get Thunderbird working properly again and recover my old emails if possible?

Thank you for your support.

Dee

I've had a Thunderbird email account for years. My laptop quit, so I've set up the account on a new laptop. I discovered that I hadn't saved my Thunderbird password, so I followed the procedure for "forgot password". This included a new p/w, and I also got a Mozilla PIN (for future Microsoft Password Manager use), and got a Mozilla Account Recovery Key, again for future use. But I can't log into my Thunderbird account. I get the message "Authentication Error" (Wrong p/w, email, etc.) Changing IMAP / POP settings didn't help, though I did go with the recommended IMAP setting.

Any suggestions?

Allan

My Sent folder is empty, but I did not empty it. Test messages are not being saved in it. I tried making a Sent folder under Local folders and directing Sent items to it. They do not arrive there, either. What may have gone wrong?? email me at [redacted from public] @alum.mit.edu

As of a few weeks ago, none of the links on the Add-ons Manager Details pages in my TB 152 work, e.g. Author or Homepage. Moving the mouse over them, left-clicking on them, right-clicking on them, no effect at all. Which is annoying, as with several add-ons I use I'll want to go the add-on's Github page to look for new betas, report issues etc. Those links all used to work, opening the linked page as a tab in Thunderbird, but now they don't work at all, not even a right-click menu option to open in browser. Still not working in 152.0.1. This isn't only with me, surely?

I realize this can be a macOS issue as the problem appeared when I upgraded to 26x but I'm hoping that maybe there's another way of allowing windows to be moved with a mouse. This issue appears only under tbird and not under any other Apple or non-Apple products.

The new child window(s) opens up in the default location(s).

The issue has survived several OS updates up to the current one. I switched from macOS 15x to 26x in around January 26.

Firefox does not really open any child windows that I could find but browsing windows work as expected.

I have about a dozen accounts with over 50 folders, most with a matching filter. About 100k messages, taking up about 1G of disk space. All but one account is merged under my Inbox to have fewer duplicate In/Draft/Sent boxes eating up window space. I'm using 152.0.1 (aarch64) Release branch on a Mac OS X 26. All are POP accounts on a DreamHost server.

At some point it started to show the draft message on every email, which means on incoming as well. I've had this phenomenon for years.

Recently filtering has started to not automatically run on some emails forcing me to run the filters manually. I've run the repair folder options which does not seem to make any difference.

Since switching to macOS 26 it also does not allow me to move Thunderbird child windows, they simply show up on the default location. But that's for another ticket.

When I try to send a message I get the following error message: An error occurred while sending mail: Outgoing server(SMTP) error. The server responded: Cannot connect to SMTP server 209.71.208.9 (209.71.208.9.25) connect error10060 How do I fix this?

Sometimes a search term will pull up many emails I need to sift though, like in the case where it's a common word, like permit. I was searching the term "permit" for building permit emails and got many unrelated emails that were more recent with permit in the email body. I am able to quickly skim and see these are unrelated but the limiting factor is only ten results per page. When I click load more, takes a few moments to load. I was unable to find any way to change this. How can it be done? Should be possible, it's doesn't affect Mozilla's processing because everything is done locally on my machine. I would much rather 100 results to load or to load indefinitely.

Additional question: on that search term, many unrelated emails came up as mentioned before. When I searched the same term in gmail in my internet browser, only relevant emails came up. Why is this? How do I improve the thunderbird search?

After Thunderbird 152.0.1 Windows x64 lost its mind:

* my main calendar
* not allow recreation from backup data
* would not load profile

I had no option but to remove and reinstall.

Local Folders has 4 non-removeable folders Drafts - XXxxxx, Sent, Trash and Outbox that were not there in the past 20 years.