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

How to I stop Thunderbird from autoretrieving email?

  • 1 ŋuɖoɖo
  • 1 masɔmasɔ sia le esi
  • 3 views
  • Nuɖoɖo mlɔetɔ Toad-Hall

more options

I have Thunderbird set so that it should NOT check for email until I ask it to under TOOLS>ACCOUNT SETTINGS> Server Settings. Also, in preferences I have "Use Idle Command if Server Supports it" checked. Yet, my Thunderbird program still automatically checks email. How can I get it to stop?

Also, how do you import mail from Eudora? I already followed the steps to import, and it imported the mail boxes but none of the actual mail. How do I get the mail from Eudora into Thunderbird?

I have Thunderbird set so that it should NOT check for email until I ask it to under TOOLS>ACCOUNT SETTINGS> Server Settings. Also, in preferences I have "Use Idle Command if Server Supports it" checked. Yet, my Thunderbird program still automatically checks email. How can I get it to stop? Also, how do you import mail from Eudora? I already followed the steps to import, and it imported the mail boxes but none of the actual mail. How do I get the mail from Eudora into Thunderbird?

All Replies (1)

more options

The account settings option you mention will work if POP mail account.

But as you mention 'Use Idle Command if Server Supports it', I'm assuming you have an IMAP mail account. If the account is IMAP and the IMAP server supports the IDLE command, I think you will receive notifications as soon as they arrive at the server, independent of the settings for checking mail. The IDLE command is a extension to the IMAP protocol that lets the IMAP server notify Thunderbird when there is new mail by sending a command over the existing TCP-IP connection. If your IMAP server supports that you don't have to manually check for new mail or have Thunderbird poll for new mail every x minutes.

So, the server is connecting to Thunderbird. It is just the way IMAP works.

However, you could choose to work in 'offline' mode. Then go into 'online' mode to receive mail and send any unsent messages.