I-Thunderbird Community Forum

When using "Compact Folders," the compacting will stop on a certain folder (it changes) and says that I do not have enough space to complete the action. I usually ignore it, close that command, then Compact the folder in question by itself. Then it works, so all Folders are compacted.

The other day I received an email from Mozilla suggesting I move from Thunderbird ESR to the Release version (Windows 11). I backed up my profile and installed Release 139.0.2. The following error is now popping up periodically in Thunderbird: "The folder 'Inbox on [myemailaddress]' could not be compacted because writing to folder failed. Verify that you have enough disk space, and that you have write privileges to the file system, then try again."

I do not think this message is really related to disk space (there's plenty available) or file write privileges since nothing should have changed. I see that others have encountered this message where Thunderbird is trying to compact other folders. However, I did not see a solution applicable to my situation.

Thank you, in advance, for any insight in getting rid of this error.

Several days ago, I asked for an explanation of any process that would retrieve the emails I lost (completely missing) after the compacting process. (You are referring to https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1513163 )

Your information indicates that compacting would not cause any data loss. That has not been the case.

To date, I further haven't received any response regarding how I might retrieve those emails.

Many of these emails are quite important to my business - and I entrusted your software to preserve those. Again - no response regarding how I might retrieve them.

Please respond ASAP - I am at critical juncture here, and need a resolution forthwith.

Thank you. John Van Epps <redacted>@gmail.com

Long-time user here. A month or so ago I switched from 128 esr to 139 release, and since then I have had constant messaging several times a day that folders could nor be compacted. I've verified everything, but the message still happens with annoying regularity. I saw on Reddit that this may be a known bug, but thought I would report it to the forum anyway. Hope that it will be resolved in the next release.

Compacting fails with error message " The folder 'Inbox on **********' could not be compacted because writing to folder failed. Verify that you have enough disk space, and that you have write privileges to the file system, then try again." This happens on both my PC's, which are not connected in any way, but have duplicate installations. The profile is 7.75GB - PC A - Win 10 Pro - has 704GB spare disk space, PC B - Win 11 Pro - has 50GB spare disk space. I can think of no reason why write permissons would change. This problem started with ver. 138 & has continued with ver. 139

I get this message when trying to delete or compact....

"The folder 'Inbox on gggdds@js-net.com' could not be compacted because writing to folder failed. Verify that you have enough disk space, and that you have write privileges to the file system, then try again...."

I'm logged in as administrator; what else can I do?

I'm in the process of cleaning up Thunderbird e-mail before moving to a new computer. I started with 11,593 e-mails in my Inbox and 7,799 e-mails in my Sent folder. I'm now down to 7,634 in my Inbox and 4,965 in my Sent folder. I've allocated 2 weeks for this process and found that it's taking me about 3 hours per day to meet my daily goals. I'm finding that I'm spending at LEAST half the time responding to "Empty-Trash/Compact-folders" requests. There are times I can delete 50 e-mails at a time without getting a request. Other times I will try to delete ten e-mails and get the request. With the old version of Thunderbird I could literally delete hundreds of e-mails at a time. Can you help? Russ Bukwa Yardley, PA ps. I have intentionally given you specific numbers. Based on my software- and test-engineering experience, I speculate you need to create a stress test to solve this nagging problem.

I have an email account through Moxilla Thunderbird and I can only access earlier emails through the webmail account. I want to be ble to see ALL my email messages by clicking on Moxilla Thunderbird icon on my computer. PLEASE HELP!

Greetings! I read everywhere that we must install the Lightning add-on to use the calendar feature in Thunderbird. But when I search for this add-on, I get a bazillion options, none of which appears Lightning. There is something called Lightning Calendar Tabs that keeps coming up. Is this it? Doesn't seem so.

Where can one download/install the Lightning add-on?

Thank you.

I am a M365 - leaver, and working several months now with Thunderbird/LibreOffice/Nextcloud. Sometimes I'm proud of what I learned and can do with the new software. Sometimes I'm a little lost in the woods.

I'm using the add-on Quicktext to insert default html text, like a template, in some of my my emails. One of the templates is a notification for my customers to inform them the invoice they received from me is not yet paid.

In the former software I was used to click in my template on a datepicker to insert the senddate of the invoice. I tried to insert a html-datepicker. This appears in the email, but is send to the reciever as a datepciker, not as the date I choose.

My question. Is there a way to insert a datepicker in a template like Quicktext, or is there a better add-on for this goal?

I have been trying all week to figure out how to export all of my contacts from my gmail account. I have downloaded Thunderbird and followd the step to export all emails. But, now what? I can't do the simple export contacts through adddress book, because there were no saved contacts in their to begin with. How do I export the addresses in the emails so that I can use those contacts to export into CSV????

peter.lerche@mail.dk My internet service provider, YouSee, removed my access to Thunderbird for a couple of days - then restored it. However with the result that my laptop can receive and send emails, my PC can receive but not send, and my phone can neither receive nor send.

YouSee claims that everything looks OK from their side, and that any correction is up to Thunderbird.

Can you possibly help me?

Peter Lerche

An old forum describes how to sync calendars in Thunderbird. Here is an easy solution - In the left-hand pane of your calendar page, right-click your calendar name/ export calendar - into a removable device. In your other computer - Tools/import/ import from a file/ choose to import calendar - easy!

Using TB 141.0 MS Word 11 Too many wrong videos, too many old explanations. It's August 2025. Please, I'm not a computer wiz. Just a home novice. OK with specific directions. How to export my Gmail contacts list and import it to my TB contacts. I have tried basic gmail export...but should it be "google .csv", " or what? I don't think I have Outlook loaded anymore on windows 11. If you could help by actually sending me instructions that I will follow direct. ie: Sign into Gmail>click on contact file to be exported>export contacts and click "google .csv" (or the correct choice there)..then what? I've been trying and it wants me to save to a file...but how? And which file? I know it's an effort on your part, but I will print and save going forward. Thanks so much. LS in AZ.