Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

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

Thunderbird Hangs when filing a message or sending (IMAP) [Mac]

  • 8 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by glossjorge

more options

I'm on a Mac running High Sierra OS X with five IMAP accounts set up in Thunderbird (TB). When I connect they all download new messages & things are fine for a while. If I leave TB running for a while then try to reply to an email TB will hand trying to connect to the server. Another symptom is when I try to file a message from one account' inbox into a folder that lives on a different email account on another server. Either the connection to the target server hangs or the inbox locks up and will not let me look at any other messages. Restarting TB clears the problem but this is hardly an acceptable solution, especially if I just composed a long email and attached supporting documents. Drafts are not being saved timely when the symptoms occur so I have to cut and paste my message, restart TB then re-compose the message and send.

I'm on a Mac running High Sierra OS X with five IMAP accounts set up in Thunderbird (TB). When I connect they all download new messages & things are fine for a while. If I leave TB running for a while then try to reply to an email TB will hand trying to connect to the server. Another symptom is when I try to file a message from one account' inbox into a folder that lives on a different email account on another server. Either the connection to the target server hangs or the inbox locks up and will not let me look at any other messages. Restarting TB clears the problem but this is hardly an acceptable solution, especially if I just composed a long email and attached supporting documents. Drafts are not being saved timely when the symptoms occur so I have to cut and paste my message, restart TB then re-compose the message and send.

Modified by Wayne Mery

All Replies (8)

more options

We have bugs filed about this

more options

Any estimated ETA on a fix for this issue? Is there a release I could go back to (at least temporarily) that does not exhibit this behavior? And if so what is the procedure to go to a back level release without losing filter rules, signatures, etc.

more options

HeadNERD said

Is there a release I could go back to (at least temporarily) that does not exhibit this behavior?

What release is causing the problem for you?

more options

52.9.1 (64-bit) on Macbook Pro running Mac OS Mojave 10.14

more options

I saw somewhere that this problem is being solved in the Beta version of Thunderbird, but it still happens in the Beta version, so more work needs to be done with this issue, I don't want to have to use the Apple Mail App.

more options

I'm not a Mac user but I follow all the related bug reports pretty closely - I'm not aware that there has been any progress in the last few months.

So I'd say any information you have seen that suggests this has been fixed is incorrect, or is a workaround that hasn't been posted to the bug reports.

more options

Perhaps glossjorge knows something that I don't but I continue to have the problem. I routinely have to cut the text from an outgoing message when it hangs, shut down Thunderbird and restart it and then past the message text into a new outgoing message. I have update to every version that has come out since reporting this issue in hopes that the problem would get resolved, but alas, it's still happening.

more options

I saw in the support forums that tis problem was being worked on in the Beta and they had a link to the Beta version of Thunderbirds, but again, it's still happening, so it has not been fixed.