- Synchronization should happen occasionally around the time Thunderbird checks for new mail as set by "Check for new messages every n minutes".

- If the server supports IDLE commands (this what the "Allow immediate server notifications..." option applies to), it should happen more often, probably also around the time new messages arrive.

- If you want to force synchronization, use the Config Editor to set the mail.server.default.check_all_folders_for_new preference to true.

- Expanding/collapsing an account’s folder list may also enforce synchronization.

Also see IMAP Synchronization and this page at the mozillaZine KB.

When I posted this ticket I already went through the process of searching for common and similar answers. You've just given me a standard response based on keywords which isn't appropriate to the problem.

It's not that changes in another program don't appear in thunderbird, it's that changes made in thunderbird don't appear in other programs until I close it.

What happens is this, I receive an email, it goes into inbox. In thunderbird I drag that email into another folder. In another client I'll have Inbox open but the change wont apply, no matter what I do (refresh, etc). However as soon as I close thunderbird, all of the things I have moved out of Inbox apply immediately in the other client.

The strange thing is that when I drag something into the Inbox, that appears immediately in other clients.

I've tried everything, the only thing that works is closing thunderbird.

Have you tried it the other way round? Move messages in another client; does Thunderbird mirror those changes?

If not, then maybe it's how that particular server works. It might not commit changes until it is provoked to do so, perhaps by closure of the connection.

I have noticed in various clients that the contents of subfolders might appear to be missing but when I open the folder it is populated. I draw from this the inference is that some folders are refreshed only when you access them. The Inbox is a special case, since it receives incoming and therefore non-predictable messages which may be urgent, whereas movement between subfolders might be treated as housekeeping, considered to be lower priority and therefore not deserving of immediate notification or display.

JoeyTheUsername said

When I posted this ticket I already went through the process of searching for common and similar answers. You've just given me a standard response based on keywords which isn't appropriate to the problem.

This is far from true. I didn’t search this forum and neither gave you standard responses based on keywords, and probably also understood about your issue. And even if I did, it could help out most users, especially if they do not provide that info in their original question.

_{(Please don’t try to outsmart helpers or be offensive here because of frustration or other unknown reasons and respect the forum rules and guidelines, or others may report the issue as abuse or no longer help you, which will also affect other users.)}

Your issue, or rather your question, is how to force synchronization of local files in Thunderbird with the server, so I gave you 4 circumstances in a particular order. Info not provided earlier is that you see different behavior for other folders than the Inbox so a response to that was not included (but meanwhile answered above), nor that the server decides a lot and Thunderbird may be out of control.

Additionally, it might be better to check the server content using webmail rather than other clients, even though these clients seem to follow changes instantly. Or enable logging in Thunderbird if you are curious, but that would not really be needed and your question was what you could do to enforce this.

Your mileage may vary if you allow Offline storage and perhaps change some preferences mentioned in this article. However I think changing the mail.imap.expunge_option preference from 0 to 1 may give better results, as that would do similar as expunging only on shutdown, allegedly triggering synchronization.

I don’t think there are better ways to enforce this currently, but may have overlooked something.