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

Cuireadh an snáithe seo sa chartlann. Cuir ceist nua má tá cabhair uait.

Thunderbird for Gmail

  • 2 fhreagra
  • 1 leis an bhfadhb seo
  • 1 view
  • Freagra is déanaí ó scotch196

more options

I have been using Outlook for my email accounts, including Gmail, but would like to install Thunderbird as Gmail soon will no longer work with my version of Outlook. In the Mozilla support article "How to add your Gmail account to Thunderbird", it says that after configuring the account, "Thunderbird will download your existing messages and your Gmail will be ready to use." Will Thunderbird at that stage download every message in Gmail's inbox? My problem is that I have thousands of old messages in Gmail as have never accessed Gmail from my browser but from my email programs (Outlook Express, Win Liive Mail, Outlook) where I store messages in folders and delete whatever is not needed. If Thunderbird is, by default, going to download everything in Gmail, are there any options to limit this by date or any other criteria. Thank you for any help. Scotch

I have been using Outlook for my email accounts, including Gmail, but would like to install Thunderbird as Gmail soon will no longer work with my version of Outlook. In the Mozilla support article "How to add your Gmail account to Thunderbird", it says that after configuring the account, "Thunderbird will download your existing messages and your Gmail will be ready to use." Will Thunderbird at that stage download every message in Gmail's inbox? My problem is that I have thousands of old messages in Gmail as have never accessed Gmail from my browser but from my email programs (Outlook Express, Win Liive Mail, Outlook) where I store messages in folders and delete whatever is not needed. If Thunderbird is, by default, going to download everything in Gmail, are there any options to limit this by date or any other criteria. Thank you for any help. Scotch

Réiteach roghnaithe

There is no option in Thunderbird to limit which messages it should fetch from your Gmail account. You can, however, configure Thunderbird to fetch headers only, instead of downloading all messages in full. Fetching headers only is a quick affair even for tens of thousands of messages. It only takes a brief moment and very little internet bandwidth. If using IMAP, you can limit by age (and other criteria) which messages get downloaded in full. See IMAP Synchronization

Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (2)

more options

Réiteach Roghnaithe

There is no option in Thunderbird to limit which messages it should fetch from your Gmail account. You can, however, configure Thunderbird to fetch headers only, instead of downloading all messages in full. Fetching headers only is a quick affair even for tens of thousands of messages. It only takes a brief moment and very little internet bandwidth. If using IMAP, you can limit by age (and other criteria) which messages get downloaded in full. See IMAP Synchronization

more options

Stans, thanks very much for the comprehensive reply and for answering my questions, all useful info for a Thunderbird novice. Much appreciated.