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How do I get Thunderbird to rescan Local Folders SOLUTION: use movemail account type

I-Thunderbird Installation and updates
Wayne Mery replied
jagdpanther
jagdpanther

I use 'fetchmail' (plus a piped virus scan and spam detection) to place incoming e-mail messages in ~/Mail. I have pointed Thunderbird's 'Local Folders' at ~/Mail and Thunderbird reads the e-mail messages without issue. However, when new messages arrive, they do not appear in Thunderbird until I restart Thunderbird.

How do I get Thunderbird to scan "Local Folders" for new messages on a periodic schedule? I would also like the "Get Messages" button to re-scan "Local Folders"

I do not want to initiate incoming messages via Thunderbird because sometimes I remotely use mutt or some other reader over a slow connection. I also like the flexibility and control that fetchmail gives.

(Work-around: I set up a local imapd to point Thunderbird at and imapd points to the same ~/Mail, this works and sees new messages, but I really don't want imapd running just as a work-around, even if imapd is started only when needed via xinetd.)

I use 'fetchmail' (plus a piped virus scan and spam detection) to place incoming e-mail messages in ~/Mail. I have pointed Thunderbird's 'Local Folders' at ~/Mail and Thunderbird reads the e-mail messages without issue. However, when new messages arrive, they do not appear in Thunderbird until I restart Thunderbird. How do I get Thunderbird to scan "Local Folders" for new messages on a periodic schedule? I would also like the "Get Messages" button to re-scan "Local Folders" I do not want to initiate incoming messages via Thunderbird because sometimes I remotely use mutt or some other reader over a slow connection. I also like the flexibility and control that fetchmail gives. (Work-around: I set up a local imapd to point Thunderbird at and imapd points to the same ~/Mail, this works and sees new messages, but I really don't want imapd running just as a work-around, even if imapd is started only when needed via xinetd.)

Okulungisiwe ngu Wayne Mery

All Replies (3)

Wayne Mery
Wayne Mery
  • Top 25 Contributor
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Where did you get the idea that you could do this with "Local Folders"?

I suspect you should be using Thunderbird's movemail account type. Have you tried that?

jagdpanther
jagdpanther Umnikazi wombuzo

> Where did you get the idea that you could do this with "Local Folders"?

My idea. I want to get and process my e-mail with fetchmail and procmail and read it with Thunderbird. I can (and am) doing this with a local imapd server to point Thunderbird at. I was just trying to eliminate the local imapd server.t

>I suspect you should be using Thunderbird's >movemail account type. Have you tried that?

No. I'll look into it but thought that was a one-time transfer of messages into Thunderbird.

Wayne Mery
Wayne Mery
  • Top 25 Contributor
  • Moderator

No, not one time.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Help_Documentation:Creating_an_Account http://askubuntu.com/questions/301988/using-movemail-with-thunderbird-on-ubuntu http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1718795

Note - it is not without bugs. See http://mzl.la/1LRypJD Also, it's not much used so support is extremely thin, as well as development resources. But if you use it, and can help in support or bugs, so much the better.