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Thunderbird for Gmail

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  • Last reply by scotch196

scotch196
scotch196
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I have been using Outlook for my email accounts, including Gmail, but would like to install Thunderbird as Gmail soon will no longer work with my version of Outlook. In the Mozilla support article "How to add your Gmail account to Thunderbird", it says that after configuring the account, "Thunderbird will download your existing messages and your Gmail will be ready to use." Will Thunderbird at that stage download every message in Gmail's inbox? My problem is that I have thousands of old messages in Gmail as have never accessed Gmail from my browser but from my email programs (Outlook Express, Win Liive Mail, Outlook) where I store messages in folders and delete whatever is not needed. If Thunderbird is, by default, going to download everything in Gmail, are there any options to limit this by date or any other criteria. Thank you for any help. Scotch

I have been using Outlook for my email accounts, including Gmail, but would like to install Thunderbird as Gmail soon will no longer work with my version of Outlook. In the Mozilla support article "How to add your Gmail account to Thunderbird", it says that after configuring the account, "Thunderbird will download your existing messages and your Gmail will be ready to use." Will Thunderbird at that stage download every message in Gmail's inbox? My problem is that I have thousands of old messages in Gmail as have never accessed Gmail from my browser but from my email programs (Outlook Express, Win Liive Mail, Outlook) where I store messages in folders and delete whatever is not needed. If Thunderbird is, by default, going to download everything in Gmail, are there any options to limit this by date or any other criteria. Thank you for any help. Scotch

Chosen solution

There is no option in Thunderbird to limit which messages it should fetch from your Gmail account. You can, however, configure Thunderbird to fetch headers only, instead of downloading all messages in full. Fetching headers only is a quick affair even for tens of thousands of messages. It only takes a brief moment and very little internet bandwidth. If using IMAP, you can limit by age (and other criteria) which messages get downloaded in full. See IMAP Synchronization

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Stans
Stans
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Chosen Solution

There is no option in Thunderbird to limit which messages it should fetch from your Gmail account. You can, however, configure Thunderbird to fetch headers only, instead of downloading all messages in full. Fetching headers only is a quick affair even for tens of thousands of messages. It only takes a brief moment and very little internet bandwidth. If using IMAP, you can limit by age (and other criteria) which messages get downloaded in full. See IMAP Synchronization

scotch196
scotch196 Question owner
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Stans, thanks very much for the comprehensive reply and for answering my questions, all useful info for a Thunderbird novice. Much appreciated.