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.

Avatar for Username

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

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Thunderbird Imap slowness

  • 5 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 13 views
  • Last reply by Matt

scinmn
scinmn
more options

Due to the end of support for windows live mail (WLM) I decided to give thunderbird a try an have set up one of my Hotmail accounts using IMAP for testing. With WLM, once new email was downloaded to your computer, viewing inbox, sent, deleted or any other folder or emails within those folders was very fast. With Thunderbird it seems like even though the email has been downloaded, every time you click on inbox, sent, deleted or any other folder or emails within those folders the program is synchronizing or reloading emails every time. Maybe that's just the way IMAP works? If I set thunderbird to work offline then it works much faster. What I want is for the program to just sync email folders on startup, check for new mail every 10 min, and sync again on exit like WLM did. Any suggestions?

Due to the end of support for windows live mail (WLM) I decided to give thunderbird a try an have set up one of my Hotmail accounts using IMAP for testing. With WLM, once new email was downloaded to your computer, viewing inbox, sent, deleted or any other folder or emails within those folders was very fast. With Thunderbird it seems like even though the email has been downloaded, every time you click on inbox, sent, deleted or any other folder or emails within those folders the program is synchronizing or reloading emails every time. Maybe that's just the way IMAP works? If I set thunderbird to work offline then it works much faster. What I want is for the program to just sync email folders on startup, check for new mail every 10 min, and sync again on exit like WLM did. Any suggestions?

All Replies (5)

Wayne Mery
Wayne Mery
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

It's not that simple. Unless you have a performance issue it's not worth digging into how it works.

scinmn
scinmn Question owner
more options

Thanks for the reply but this is a performance issue.

Wayne Mery
Wayne Mery
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

do help | troubleshooting | copy to clipboard and paste here the contents of only the accounts and extensions

scinmn
scinmn Question owner
more options

The more I research this, it appears that what I am experiencing is probably a Microsoft issue. Apparently Hotmail accounts have only recently supported IMAP and it seem that many others have reported its slowness.

If anyone out there with thunderbird has a Microsoft Hotmail/Live, account set up using IMAP and it is work well please let me know. Perhaps I'm missing something?

Matt
Matt
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

I doubt you are missing anything. Live/Hotmail is basically a poor service. Their POP is prone to duplication of messages as well, so is not really a good alternative.

Having said that, anti virus programs have a huge impact of the speed of email and scanning can be the cause of slowness. One of the first diagnostics is to disable email scanning in your anti virus and reboot.

My preferred solution is just do not use their service. Use Google or even better GMX. set them up to get your mail from hotmail every 10 minutes and forget you ever had the account. Your replies using the new mail address will eventually get through to everyone you have a new address, and if it does not you still get their mail via the old one.