This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Disable Automatic Message Retrieval

  • 1 reply
  • 1 has this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by sfhowes

more options

I am using Thunderbird 60.6.1.

I am trying to disable automatic retrieval of my messages to minimize distractions throughout the day and ensure emails only come through when I manually check for them.

In Tools > Account Settings > Server Settings, I have unchecked the following:

- Check for new message at startup
- Check for new messages every ___ minutes
- Allow immediate server notifications when new messages arrive

Despite these setting changes, new messages are periodically arriving into my inbox. Am I missing a setting which needs to be modified? Could add-ons be overriding some of these settings?

Thanks, Chris

I am using Thunderbird 60.6.1. I am trying to disable automatic retrieval of my messages to minimize distractions throughout the day and ensure emails only come through when I manually check for them. In Tools > Account Settings > Server Settings, I have unchecked the following: - Check for new message at startup - Check for new messages every ___ minutes - Allow immediate server notifications when new messages arrive Despite these setting changes, new messages are periodically arriving into my inbox. Am I missing a setting which needs to be modified? Could add-ons be overriding some of these settings? Thanks, Chris

All Replies (1)

more options

If an IMAP server supports the IDLE command, messages will be downloaded to TB as soon as they arrive at the mail server. That seems to override any setting in TB, like the 3rd one above. I suggest you adjust the settings in Tools/Options/Advanced/Network & Disk Space/Offline so that you only go online manually - by clicking the icon at the left end of the Status Bar that toggles the online/offline state.