There's a long thread here about a similar issue: http://forums.xfinity.com/t5/E-Mail-and-Xfinity-Connect-Help/Can-t-download-all-messages-from-server/td-p/1872397 You'll see that the person who posted there had over 1900 messages in his Comcast inbox but could download only 71 to Thunderbird. If you read through the thread you'll see that he was given instructions on how to telnet into the Comcast server. That means he was able to communicate with the server without going through Thunderbird at all. He found that the server was reporting only 71 messages to be downloaded, whereas the Comcast webmail page was showing 1900+. Obviously -- as he realised -- it therefore wasn't a problem with Thunderbird, it was a problem at Comcast; and armed with the telnet data he was able to tackle them about it. I encourage you, therefore, to read through that thread and try the telnet commands yourself. If you can verify that the Comcast server is reporting over 3000 mails to download we can try to help you investigate why Thunderbird isn't getting them; but if (as I suspect) the server is reporting only 885, you'll need to take that up with Comcast direct.

I did read that thread and hoped there was another possibility. I hate dealing with Comcast. It's also a bit daunting using telnet if you're not a geek. I hope it is as straightforward as the thread describes. We'll see... Thank you.

1900 emails and 800 in the inbox, so your get the 800 that are in the inbox because your using pop is my guess. With no checking anything.

Sorry, I don't understand your post. Yes, I'm using pop.

pop only gets mail from the inbox... so if you have a thousand other messages in another folder they will never download.

Yes. I am talking about the inbox only. I realize that I will have to move the other folders to the inbox to download them. But so far it is downloading only 800 out of 3000 from the inbox. I will try to telnet the server and talk to Comcast. Thanks.