Thunderbird Community Forum

Dear community,

I have decided and will stick with Mozilla Thunderbird, with hopefully future support for important and established standards such as IMAP, Card DAV, Cal DAV and so on. Apart from the other free providers, I have also spent a long time studying the many options and settings of this client. Very few seem oversized or inappropriate. Very nice, minimalist design and functional! Some people should be ashamed of what they complain and demand. I am a big fan of my own domains and emails from established hosting platforms. Email is more important to me than social media and messaging apps. I really appreciate your work. This is not about annoying advertising and money, but about passion and commitment. You guys make me happy. Thank you.

Daniel Hill

About a month ago I began the process of upgrading from W10 to W11. In the process, several problems happened. One of the problems was with Firefox. After reading and trying many suggestions from the Mozilla site, as well as several other sites, and having no success, I posted my problem on this Mozilla support site and hope that there was someone who could help. There was. After several days of exchanging messages (suggestions, instructions and results - mostly about Profile), Firefox returned.

The other major problem is Thunderbird. I have downloaded a current version (128.5.2esr). I have run it twice and, each time, email was downloaded. So that part seems to be working. What doesn’t appear are the settings I have used and message folders I have created over several years. I suspect that the problems are Profile related.

Starting from Help in the Thunderbird menu, then Troubleshooting Information, then Application Basics, I see Profile Folder. On that line is a button labeled Open Folder followed by (Local Drive). I click Open Folder and File Explorer opens to a folder named ab3xaztm.default-esr. It shows that the folder contains 59 items, including 10 subfolders. All files and folders show a December date.

Following the path C:\Users\rsuth\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\, in addition to ab3x…, there is another folder nlys3gkl.default that contains only 1 file, times.json.

Because of my earlier struggle – and eventual win – with the Firefox problem, I think that the Thunderbird problem might also be fixed in a similar way: Profile.

Slightly before the upgrading from W10 to W11, I made a copy of my Thunderbird folder. I think if I replace the currently active Thunderbird folder with the one I have saved, my Thunderbird problem may be over. However, I’m not certain that will happen and I’m not certain about the specific steps to take to make the replacement. (With my Firefox issue, there were a couple of small important steps I had to take to make it work, and those steps were explained to me by the person who helped me with my Firefox problem. So, after all these words, can someone point me in the direction to solve my Thunderbird problem?

Thanks for reading.

Dear Thunderbird:

I have used Thunderbird for years. I click on Attach to add images to my email. To check the attachments, I would double click on each one and it would open in my Microsoft Photo Viewer for Windows. However, now instead of opening the image, I get Adobe Acrobat Reader Home page and no image.

Has something changed in Thunderbird ? Or is there a simple setting I can change with your coaching ?

Thank you for your help.

Pip Spaull

In Thunderbird I see two methods of accessing/editing SMTP settings for email accounts.

1. Using the "Outgoing Server (SMTP)" which displays all the email accounts in a list. You then select one and click "Edit" to view or edit it.

2. On each email account page there is an "Edit SMTP server" button. Click that to view or edit the SMTP settings for that account.

I'm seeing two problems:

1 - The settings made using #1 above don't carry over into what I see using #2 above.

2 - Using method #2 above, changing the SMTP settings for my newest email account also changes the settings (seen using #2 above) on one other email account. And vice-versa.

What could be causing this?

I reset my PC and saved the wrong profile path, so i cant restore my thunderbird profile the normal way. However, I exported the profile to my phone and the thunderbird android app, where it is still stored. Can I export my profile from the App to then import it on the PC version? thx for your help!

I changed computers and in order to make sure I could use TB on the new one, I updated the old computer from 120-something to 128.5.2, and then installed 128.5.2 on the new one as well. The transfer went okay - once I saw the video that explains how to do it - but when I sat down to write an R-T-L email, it didn't automatically R-T-L, and when I looked for the "switch-direction" button I was used to in the old TB, it wasn't there! I can write in Hebrew, (or Arabic), but I can't R-T-L the text. HELP? HELP! Thank you

I have banged and scratched my head raw over how to get Thunderbird to setup accounts for GMail and Yahoo, both of which require OAUTH2 authentication. When I attempt to do so, Thunderbird hangs for a long time, when trying to verify my login name and password, and finally comes back to tell me my login credentials were invalid. I am using the exact same login credentials that I use to log in to my accounts from a web browser, which works.

I have tried to follow the online help instructions at - https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7126229#zippy=%2Ci-cant-sign-in-to-my-email-client https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-and-gmail

but no joy! I am using Thunderbird version 128.5.2esr (64-bit) running on Linux/OpenSuSE 15.6 with the KDE/Plasma/X11 desktop. I don't know what additional information to provide but will be glad to do so, just ask. Any kind gurus around that can help me get out of these dark woods and guide me towards the light? I am lost!

   Marc...

Thunderbird was open when my Ubuntu Unity 24.04.1 LTS system abruptly powered off. When I restarted the system, Thunderbird first downloaded a ton of duplicate Emails from pop.gmail.com. Once I cleared those out, Thunderbird now times out attempting to reconnect. I am running the .deb (not the snap) version of Thunderbird 128.5.2esr (64-bit). I'm sure something got corrupted and I'd like to get that straightened out. Thanks in advance.

By the way, I do have both the Cardbook and GCalTab addons which read my contacts and calendar entries from Google just fine. Only the Gmail portion is FUBAR.

I have several errors associated with the unified folders display. I have 6 email addresses coming in to Thunderbird. 3 are IMAP and 3 are POP. I have the POP addresses consolidated into the "Local" Folders Inbox, Sent, Trash etc. In the "All Folder" account views, the Local folder correctly displays one Inbox, one Sent, one Trash etc. The 3 POP emails accounts are being consolidated appropriately. However,in Unified folders, the Local folder as well as all of the individual POP addresses are now listed for the Inbox, Trash and Junk folders. There is now no consolidation.

Also, the Unified folders themselves are extremely slow in working. Accessing the properties for the Unified Inbox, Trash or Junk folders results in a long wait with Thunderbird entering a not responding state. Right click operations on the unified folders do not work at all. I cannot select properties, I cannot mark as read, empty or otherwise manipulate the folder. I must go to the individual accounts to manage any folder content. Which I would think makes the whole concept of Unified folders moot.

I am not at all certain what may be the root cause of this rather longstanding problem. I have deleted the smartfolders directory, have deleted the virtualfolders.dat and foldercache.json and foldertree.json files. Nothing seems to work.

Any suggestions?

I run Thunderbird, Thunderbird ESR, K-9 or Thunderbird. Windows 7, 10 and 11, Linux and Android 5.1 and 12.

My desktops all have a gmail and yahoo.co.uk email addresses. Each account is linked to there respective contacts server but all my contacts are in one gmail account which has lost most of the contacts in recent months, that is, only the contacts that I have used recently are still present. So I have been investigating the settings and adjusting in some cases.

Some instances all the account are still linked to the contacts servers. Other cases only some of the accounts are still linked and I want to re-establish the other accounts that have become local accounts, these still have my full complete address book.

Lastly between K9, thunderbird, contacts google I don't know what went wrong but I like advice on how to avoid the problem in future. In the meantime seasons greatings, no hurry my christmas messages will have to wait.

I setup my account it worked well, I changed my office365 password. I was prompted to login with Oauth2, and it worked. However, I can receive emails, but cannot send emails. I get a notice that my password is wrong when I come to send emails. It just happens because of the password change. No matter what I do I cannot find where the Oauth was saved for smtp. There seems to be a desync, where the password updated for the Incoming server, but never lets me or updates the Oauth for the smtp server. Any thoughts?

Deleting saved passwords, just gets me to do Oauth2 for the incoming, it never takes effect on the smtp server.

Using thunderbird to connect to the mail server outlook.office365.com with imap gives the message "user is authenticated but not connected" . I have 2 accounts on this server and one works fine and the other gives this message. This occurs on both Windows 10 and Windows 11. Latest version of Thunderbird is being used. Any help would be appreciated.

Many times when I am forwarding emails or copying and pasting text from an outside source, the spell check will choose a word like "isn't" and highlight "isn" as a misspelled word. This has happened with a number of different contractions.

Additionally, it will pick parts of an abbreviated name in someone's email address in the To: field as a mistake. I do not have the time or desire to constantly, go through a long email and choose 'add to dictionary' or click ignore. Why is it even looking at parts of a contraction, and it should be ignoring the To field altogether.

Is there something wrong with my version or is this how it operates? My TBird is up-to-date: 128.5.2esr (64-bit).

I am having a problem syncing my Thunderbird folders with iCloud. Every time I have to explicitly check that I want to subscribe to all IMAP folders in my iCloud account. Then after a short while a lot of folders get unsubscribed and I have to subscribe them again. I have experienced this instability with both Thunderbird and Betterbird as well as on Windows 10 and Pop_OS! 22.04. More people have reported the same issue, but no solutions have been shared:

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1441368
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1444029

Does anyone know how can I fix this?

I just migrated my Thunderbird from my old MacBook to my new Mac Mini. I tried following the official instructions and the instructions in the linked thread, but I experienced the same problem the other users did— that Thunderbird, on the new Mac, would act as if it was setting up a new account, even after replacing the entire Thunderbird folder in the user's Library folder. With some investigation, I was able to detect how to fix the migration, though I can't tell you why Thunderbird behaves this way.

Here are the instructions I followed: [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/que.../1397228]

The process of copying the old Thunderbird is correctly described. However, there is still some funny business on the receiving end.

What I determined was that Thunderbird, for whatever reason, wasn't reading the information in the profiles.ini and installs.ini in a way that launched the migrated installation. Instead, it still created a new installation and a new profile and overlaid those on top of the information in the migrated files, making the newly created profile the default and ignoring the migrated profile when launching.

In order to correct this, I needed to manually edit the profiles.ini and installs.ini file (in a simple text editor) to use the NEW installation but substituting in my MIGRATED profile for the newly created one.

I'm sorry I didn't take screen shots before deleting the files, but the important thing is to edit both files so the both are using the NEWLY CREATED installation ID but that both files only reference the OLD profile ID (deleting all other mentions of the newly created profile and deleting mentions of the old installation ID. This is just a copy/paste operation.

I've attached screenshots of mockups of what my new profiles.ini and installs.ini look like. The important thing is that both have the NEWLY CREATED installation ID (not the one copied from the old Mac) with the OLD profile ID.

I just upgraded my desktop pc from Windows 10 to 11, and before the upgrade I used the Tools Export function to export my complete Thunderbird profile, so I could import it after the upgrade. Unfortunately the export file cannot be read on my upgraded pc using the Import function - Thunderbird gives me error messages every time, that suggest the exported folder might be corrupted or invalid.

My IMAP emails are fine, as I have set those accounts up from scratch and the folders have now populated with all the emails - the problem is all my filed emails, dating back many years, which were all stored manually in a filing system under Local Folders.

I tried manually copying across the individual files from the extracted back-up folder into my live Thunderbird profile and then reopened Thunderbird...which worked to some extent...as in, all the folders are there, but no emails are showing! It shows no messages under each folder, even though if you look under the Profile you can see that the email files exist.

I tried various ways to bring them in, including zipping one of the folders and trying to import from the zip file (which also brought in a folder but no emails) but even though the email files are clearly there under my profile, Thunderbird shows 0 messages in all my Local Folders. It's as though it is unaware the files exist, so I suspect it needs them to be formally imported somehow?

I would hate to lose the emails, as they document important information and purchases etc over many years, along with archived emails for my charity work, social events, etc. As I said, I can see the files are there but simply copying the files to my profile has only worked to the extent the filing 'structure' is visible, Thunderbird doesn't display any of the emails.

I have included two images...one of my Thunderbird Local Folders as they currently look, and the other showing the backed up files existing in my Profile, which I hope are helpful.

Can anyone help please? I am running a desktop PC on Windows 11. Thanks, David.

I am having a problem when connecting to my employer's office 365 server. I'm getting an error that says the current command did not succeed. User is authenticated but not connected. If I connect to the same account in Outlook, it works as it should. Everything was working fine until about a month ago. I had not made any changes to the configuration, except for possibly a version upgrade. I am getting same error on all computers running Thunderbird. Two are Windows machines, one is a Linux machine. I am currently on Thunderbird 128.5.2ESR. I have seen solutions on Google, and I have tried deleting the account, recreating it and changing the IPV6 DNS setting in config editor to true. Has my employer changed something that is not going to let me in? I really hope not, as I cannot stand Outlook. Even more so with the new Outlook. Thanks much for your help and advice.

Guy