I-Thunderbird Community Forum

I've been using Thunderbird for years but suddenly as of yesterday it's stopped receiving messages. First it told me my password was incorrect. Ever since then when I try to click "Get Messages," it simply has no response at all. Nothing happens. I went into my Thunderbird password settings, and upon seeing that the incoming-message password had for some reason reverted to an old, obsolete password, I corrected it and saved the correct one. I've checked several times and the passwords are correctly saved now. But this did not fix the problem. When I click "Get Messages," nothing happens. My Thunderbird is connected to my Earthlink account, which is working fine. When I go into Earthlink, I am able to send and receive messages as normal. So the problem is not with Earthlink but with Thunderbird.

Hi all,

I've been using Thunderbird for eons but yesterday morning it started freezing up constantly.

It freezes up ("Thunderbird is not responding") every time new emails are received or any time I take any action while the Inbox folder is open. So, if I delete an email it freezes for a few minutes. If I do anything pretty much, it freezes up for a few minutes. Then it comes back and I can do another action, and it freezes again. This only seems to be happening when I have the Inbox open - if I go to other folders it seems to function normally.

Things I've tried without success: - Troubleshooting mode - Adding exceptions for my profile folders to Windows Defender - Compressing Inbox (and Trash and Junk) - Repairing the Inbox index

This doesn't appear to be a memory issue - right now, memory use for my entire system seems to be hovering at just over 50%. But Thunderbird is still freezing.

My Inbox folder is very large, but it's never been an issue before and nothing significant was added yesterday when it started failing.

Any suggestions appreciated!

Thanks

(If this is a duplicate, please feel free to delete. I posted last night, but the question appears to have vanished from the forum.)

I'm using Thunderbird 151.0.1. After 151.0.0 was installed, the ability to press "/" ("slash") to search while viewing a message was broken. The slash is ignored, and following keystrokes are then acted upon.

If a search is initiated by pressing Ctrl+F, subsequent searches can be started with a slash. It's only when the first search is done that the slash is ignored.

I've been using Thunderbird since the beginning, so starting a search with a slash is in my muscle memory. As a result, I've inadvertently marked or archived or starred messages, navigated to the next thread or next unread message, etc.

Looking at the release notes, I see that a search function was fixed in 151.0.0. I wonder if this is related to that fix?

In any event, can "press slash to start a search in the message window" be restored? ...thanks!

Yesterday I had to change my Spectrum email - I have an old road runner email address and swapped over to spectrum.net server from the old server. In this process I had to update my password to access the server.

When I updated per the instructions from Spectrum I was able to do a normal download into my Thunderbird inbox. This triggered me having to input the new password. I did check the box to update the password and save it. After the one time download I cannot get Thunderbird to download emails. I can send emails with no problems but cannot download. No way can I get a download - it does not on initialization, at the set time nor with the manual request.

Spectrum is no help - their web mail works and it's my problem. I realize this is an old system, legacy and all that - anybody got a magic fix?

Any idea on how I messed this up?

Thanks.

I accidently unsubscribed my current calendar. It does not list anymore, I do not know how to list unsubscribed calendars. How to re-subscribe it? (Window 11 w/latest Thunderbird). thanks very much.

I own two computers running MacOS 10.15.7 Catalina and have Thunderbird installed on both. Until rather recently, the Thunderbird version was 140.8.1. Then I noted that it was impossible to send e-mails, and soon discovered that the cause was outdated server settings. They could not handle office365, so I installed Thunderbird 148.01 and changed to settings that should be able to do so. This worked very well on one of the computers, the one which has a fast (SSD) hard drive, but not on the other that has a slow (non-SSD) drive. The error message that I get with the slow computer is, surprisingly, the same as I got with the older Thunderbird. But I suspect that the real cause is some kind of timed-out process.

If any of you could explain what happens and tell me what to do, I would be very happy. Maybe I should choose a Thunderbird version somehere between 140 and 148?

Helge Malmgren

Thunderbird version number: 148.0.1 Mail provider: Yahoo Client OS: Windows 10

The issue and steps I tried to resolve: On 1 Jan 2026 I switched from Outlook client on my Windows 10 PC to Thunderbird 146.0.1. I did not import any user data from Outlook but started with a clean install of TB for the new year. I use yahoo.com with POP3 as my email provider. Server Settings: Server Name "pop.mail.yahoo.com", port 995, SSL/TLS, OAuth2 Outgoing Server: Server Name "smtp.mail.yahoo.com", port 465, SSL/TLS, OAuth2

it all worked fine and I was very happy with the setup. Then from early to mid-February I was unable to use my computer. When I finally accessed Thunderbird again, it connected to Yahoo and showed that approximately 800 email messages would be downloaded and started downloading them. After downloading about 100 messages, Thunderbird timed out and I haven't been able to get it to work since.

I have read and followed or tried to follow these articles plus others that I may have forgotten about (not listed in any particular order) - OAuth2 Authentication for Yahoo, AOL and ATT | Thunderbird Help - including all the steps in Please check the following before asking for support - POP access settings and instructions for Yahoo Mail | Yahoo Help - Automatic Account Configuration | Thunderbird Help - Manual Account Configuration | Thunderbird Help - Thunderbird and Yahoo | Thunderbird Help - Send and receive messages in Thunderbird | Thunderbird Help - Can no longer get emails | Thunderbird Support Forum | Mozilla Support - Emails suddenly stopped downloading to Thunderbird 140.2.1esr | Thunderbird Support Forum - Get Messages | Thunderbird Support Forum | Mozilla Support - Cannot receive messages | Thunderbird Help - Problem with Thunderbird working with Yahoo Mail acccounts. | Thunderbird Support Forum

I have removed all messages from the Yahoo inbox and tried to find one or more messages that may be affecting the download. I don't know the best way to determine that.

I use Windows Defender for my antivirus. I don't see anything in Defender that blocks or scans email messages which would prevent downloads, although I could be wrong about that. if this might be the issue, please provide some guidance about how to check Defender.

I have uninstalled and re-installed Thunderbird. In the process I downloaded the setup file for Thunderbird Setup 148.0 and installed that version. It later auto-updated to 148.0.1. Before installation, I removed all external connections from my Yahoo account and completely removed Thunderbird from my PC, including the profile and profile.ini. When I reinstall and switch the account to POP3, Thunderbird captures the App password from Yahoo and connects just fine. But it still times out while attempting the first download of a message. The first several times it timed out, an error message was displayed but now it doesn't show anything. Except no messages are downloaded.

At this point, I don't know what else to try. Since I don't have much experience with Thunderbird, I don't know how to troubleshoot the process (logs to look at, etc.). I don't want to go back to Outlook but I need the email client to work and download messages. Any help would be much appreciated.

Over the last week or so, I have received an enormous amount of scam, but no matter how many times I "train" the filter, it doesn't work.

I have just received another 3 from this site: mid:02guhjkj6-ABMcSHN6Or-JiC-000000@eu-central-1.amazonses.com, which claim to be from Madasafish Security>security@qi9adgongzenElptrum.de

I have tried on several occasions to follow the manual instructions how to deal with the spam, but I find it so log-winded that my non-techie brain, which is not wired for these kind of things, gets tired and I give up. If anyone has a more intuitive approach how to deal with this, I would be very appreciative. I have marked sites multiple times as spam, but the spam control ignores me!

I have all my past emails in specific folders within Windows Mail currently. I have three email accounts. I want to set up Thunderbird and import all the folders of emails into it and access all three accounts from within Thunderbird. I have a Master computer running windows, a tablet and a phone. I would like each device to be able to access all the email accounts and the stored folder tree within Thunderbird. I would like the Master computer to be set up with POP3 for all accounts so I can archive those I need to keep. I would like the tablet and the phone to be able to see and interact with the emails via imap so that when the Master is opened it downloads everything for processing. Do I need to set up each device separately with accounts being either imap or pop3 accordingly? will they all sync together? Thanks for your input.

My old provider has stopped supporting my old email address and I have changed to a gmail address. How do I remove the IMAP and smtp settings etc for my old email address? Also remove all trace of that unwanted old address please?

First of all, Thunderbird is a vast improvement over Outlook, so I'm persisting in setting it up. Unknown to me when I researched Thunderbird, it had an "Import from Outlook" feature. Well this trolled through all of the PST files on my computer and succeeded importing a fair amount before quitting saying that the errors were in some error-file that I can't find (Does anyone know where this error file is located?). So I have a large amount of what I need imported. Strangely, some folders have nothing initially then some time later, the emails are there! But I find the "Favourite" setup annoying. Thunderbird mirrors the setting of favourite with the target folder when you drag it to a higher level. In contrast, Outlook just creates a link to the target folder in its original location. I find Outlook's approach a lot better but still not worth the move back (Is there another way to create a Favourite in Thunderbird that does change the original folder?). Thanks for any help.

When I try to send an email, I get the following response. Sending of the message failed. An error occurred while sending mail. The mail server responded: invalid user ID or password. Please verify that your email address is correct in your account settings and try again. Have looked in account settings and cannot see a password anywhere. Email address is correct Help please Carol

Can`t install on my account therese.drioscoll12@hotmail.com I just create yesterday. I can read outlook program. There is something wrong I don`t know what top do. Therese Driscoll# * Numbered list item

Whoever designed the Threads feature apparently never used an email program.

• The topmost 'main' message in a thread isn't the newest one, it's the oldest. How the hell does that make sense? • Even if you condense the thread, it still shows the oldest one • As a result, if you sort and look at the date column, it looks completely out of order. I thought it was a bug at first until I realized what was happening. • Replies keep getting indented instead of staying at the same width, which makes long thread subjects impossible to see because they get cropped off and it's just a bunch of blank space. • There's no option to change any of it.

As a result, it's completely worthless to use. Please no talking about editing customization files users won't do or extensions that try to partially bandaid the situation that shouldn't have to.

How could this be botched so badly? Just copy Outlook's conversations view, which is light years ahead of this and does it right. Seemingly there was zero user & QA testing when this was getting developed.

Where can a report be filed so this can get fixed and useable?

Hello. I am trying to add a new provider, which means adding a new account. When I click "Add new account" it takes me to a page that asks me to enter my existing account. Does this mean the currently running account or the new account?

Last week I started getting the attached pop-up

I don't use Calendar on Thunderbird (as it does not sync ) Not sure why this has started ..... I have tried putting in password and ticking the remember box - but it still keeps popping up.

My inbox folder costently says it has more messages than it displays (I can see the missing ones by searching). I have tried repairing it, looking at filters, etc., but nothing seems to work. See picture. Thank you!

Using Thunderbird with Spectrum email (an old roadrunner address). Changed the outgoing server to the following: Server Name: mobile.charter.net Port: 587 Username: Reefside@cfl.rr.com Authentication: Normal Password Connection Security: SSL/TLS Testing connection fails. I have tried different combinations and once in a while I get that the connection is successful, but email sending hangs and never completes.