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How to I stop Thunderbird from autoretrieving email?

  • 1 reply
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by Toad-Hall

SpaceCrawler
SpaceCrawler
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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?

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Toad-Hall
Toad-Hall
  • Top 10 Contributor
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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.