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Why does thunderbird keep on downloading messages through imap

  • 4 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 10 views
  • Last reply by christ1

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I have setup my Thunderbird using imap to my Gmail account and have over 6,000 messages in Gmail (Inbox, Sent, Deleted). Now Thunderbird is busy downloading and it is eating up all my time and data, 500mb gone!!!!!

I thought the whole point about imap is that you do not have to download messages! Why is it doing this and how do I stop it?

I have setup my Thunderbird using imap to my Gmail account and have over 6,000 messages in Gmail (Inbox, Sent, Deleted). Now Thunderbird is busy downloading and it is eating up all my time and data, 500mb gone!!!!! I thought the whole point about imap is that you do not have to download messages! Why is it doing this and how do I stop it?

All Replies (4)

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Thunderbird needs to download message headers, otherwise you wouldn't see anything. Whether you download an offline copy for all your messages is configurable. In Thunderbird it's called Synchronization. https://support.mozilla.org/kb/imap-synchronization

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It did download the Headers, yes I know that, but thereafter it started download the messages 1 by 1 taking about 1 second per message

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My Thunderbird inbox is also busy for 2 days downloading. .This is the culmination of several days trying to config T-Bird with Yahoo . This change was necessary because my ISP (Spiritone.com) was having real serious problems. Come to find out after a Frontier Tech spent 2 hours on my computer that Yahoo rejects T-Bird as insecure. By the time I got the message , the T-Bird config had gone through so many contortions that the continuous download had started and I can't stop it. Maybe it is all the hundreds, thousands?, of back emails that were stored while Spiritone.com was dark. Anyway, my thought is now to abandon the T-Bird account/app, dump it , and download a new T-bird app.

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Carnal,

Unless you have something to contribute to KurtPloc's question, for your own problem please stick to your topic at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1180816

Modified by christ1