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Why has TB started creating INBOX/Trash folders on all my accounts and how can I prevent it?

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  • Last reply by AndyWooZ32

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For some reason, Thunderbird has started creating the folder INBOX with a subfolder Trash in it on all my IMAP email accounts whenever it starts. INBOX is grayed out, Trash is not. The INBOX folders are subfolders to the Inbox folder of the account and there is already a Trash folder as a subfolder to the Inbox account. How can I stop this from happening?

This is on Windows machines, latest version of TB.

For some reason, Thunderbird has started creating the folder INBOX with a subfolder Trash in it on all my IMAP email accounts whenever it starts. INBOX is grayed out, Trash is not. The INBOX folders are subfolders to the Inbox folder of the account and there is already a Trash folder as a subfolder to the Inbox account. How can I stop this from happening? This is on Windows machines, latest version of TB.

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I have the exact same problem. It seems to have started up recently. Looking at your post date of 3/1/2015, mine might have started a little bit later, but nonetheless around the same timeframe. I have tried deleting this 'shadow' folder, and it goes in the trash, and I empty the trash, and I think everything is great. Until the next time I start up TB, and it shows up as a Subdirectory of "Inbox". I use IMAP, and I check on the server side and see it there. And when I delete it from TB. It disappears from the server side. I empty the trash. I keep outlook closed for many hours, check the server side and it's "clean", as soon as I start up Thunderbird, within seconds, the 'shadow' (Inbox->"Inbox->Trash") pair of directories show up. And then it shows up on the server side as well. I have quite a number of email accounts/profiles, and it seems this happens to all but 'one' of them. Not sure what's magical about this one other profile. Otherwise, the other 10+ accounts ALL have this problem now. Some were created years and years ago, and some were created within the last year. I'm on a Mac.

At first (and still suspect) I thought it might have had to do with the 'Server Settings-> When I delete a message: -> Move it to this folder" setting, but I checked and all the old accounts and the new account has the same setting. It sets it to "Move it to this folder: "Trash on xxxx@DDDD.com" of the corresponding account.

And on the 'new' account, it is set to "Choose Folder". I've left it alone. For fear that if I 'choose' the folder to be like I've set up all the others, that this will start creating the 'Shadow' "INBOX->Trash" folder under the 'Inbox' of all my accounts.

I wish there was a way for me to 'reset' the selection on one of my other accounts to "Choose Folder" and see if it helps 'fix' the problem. Nonetheless, it seems to be a weird bug.

Screen shots attached: 1) shot of problem situation, 2 what it should look like (aka when I delete the Shadow INBOX->Trash before it reappears), 3) settings on problem accounts/profiles, 4) setting on newly created no-problem account/profile)

Hopefully, this provides a bit more color to my version of what seems to be the same problem.

Thanks.