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Emails with attachments are not copied to "Sent" folder

  • 4 replies
  • 7 have this problem
  • 24 views
  • Last reply by sfhowes

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We have this annoying problem at work that emails with attachments don't get copied to the sent folder. Even small attachments of 5k are a problem.

When at home, with the same computers, it's not at problem. We have both mac and pc.

We use IMAP and have a Lan with more than 100 Mbit/s at work. Still we get:

"There was an error saving the message to Sent. Retry?"

"The message was sent successfully, but could not be copied to your Sent folder. Would you like to return to the compose window?"

Any ideas what to do?

We have this annoying problem at work that emails with attachments don't get copied to the sent folder. Even small attachments of 5k are a problem. When at home, with the same computers, it's not at problem. We have both mac and pc. We use IMAP and have a Lan with more than 100 Mbit/s at work. Still we get: "There was an error saving the message to Sent. Retry?" "The message was sent successfully, but could not be copied to your Sent folder. Would you like to return to the compose window?" Any ideas what to do?

All Replies (4)

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What is your version of TB? Have you changed anything since the last time it worked? Mail servers changes done by your provider are also possible.

  • Does it occur when an e-mail is sent immediately (before a possible auto-save, see below)?
  • Can you copy any mail from any folder to the Sent folder?

I've heard of the error "saving to Sent" with older versions of TB, but not related to attachments.

So, for the general saving to Sent error, some people report that this https://kb.wisc.edu/wiscmail/page.php?id=3679 has helped them.

I've also heard that turning off "Auto save every .. minutes" in TB preferences > Composition > General has helped some in older versions and IMAP.

You may check this page:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/IMAP:_advanced_account_configuration

PS: You seem to use Firefox 16, an extremely outdated and insecure browser version. Same for Thunderbird? To be on the safe side (bugs, security), IMHO you should really upgrade regularly to the latest versions, of course backing up your profiles first, especially with TB ( http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup ).

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Thanks for the help but I've tried all of the things you suggested and nothing helps. We run TB 24.

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Your answers to the two questions?

If not done already, try to compact folders or tick Clean up Inbox on Exit ("Expunge"),
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders ,
read article and note paragraph "IMAP".

If nobody else has an idea, as mentioned before it is best to remember what has been changed before it stopped working. Often, Anti-Virus SW cause problems (untick Anti-Virus in Preferences > Security or stop AV from accessing TB) etc. Same for Add-ons: restart with Add-ons disables from the Help menu.

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The Sent folder may be corrupted, so that rebuilding it is necessary. The instructions are here:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders#Real_fix

and involve copying the existing messages to another location, exiting TB, deleting the mbox and msf files, and restarting TB.