Thunderbird refuses to subscribe to more than a certain number of folders.
I'm using Thunderbird 68.6.0 on Windows 10. I'm accessing an IMAP server from a well established email provider, which I have used for years. I have also used Thunderbird for well over a decade.
I am attempting to use Thunderbird to backup my IMAP account locally. I installed Thunderbird from scratch on a separate machine. I connected with no problems. For some reason Thunderbird arbitrarily was subscribed to some folders but not others; I don't know why it was subscribed to some folders and not others on a fresh install.
Nevertheless I right-clicked on the email account, selected "Subscribe...", refreshed the folders, selected all folders (hundreds of them), and clicked the "Subscribe" button, and then "OK". After a while Thunderbird started downloading messages.
I let Thunderbird run overnight, but this morning perhaps half the folders have not been downloaded. I looked at the subscribed folders, and only about the first half of them are selected. I tried to select the second half, but Thunderbird apparently ignores the updated selection. That is, I will select some new folders after the "cutoff line" where folders are no longer subscribed, and I'll select "OK", but when I go back into the subscribed folders, the new folders I selected are no longer selected.
It doesn't matter if I click the new folders manually, or if I select several folders and then hit the "Subscribe" button. It doesn't matter if I select a folder immediately after the "cutoff line", or if I go to the end and select the last few folders. Whatever I do, Thunderbird does not add new subscribe folders after a set number of selected folders. (I counted and it's way over 256; then I stopped counting.)
Does Thunderbird have a limit on the number of folders it can subscribe to?
All Replies (5)
I don't think there's a limit on the number of folders, but you may have exceeded the daily bandwidth limits imposed by the mail provider, e.g. for Google. In the case of gmail, the Takeout option is probably a better option.
sfhowes said
I don't think there's a limit on the number of folders, but you may have exceeded the daily bandwidth limits imposed by the mail provider, e.g. for Google. In the case of gmail, the Takeout option is probably a better option.
I have no bandwidth limits at all. This is not GMail. This is a true IMAP server.
And anyway, if this were a bandwidth issue, why would Thunderbird uncheck the subscription boxes that I had just selected?
How could bandwidth have any bearing at all on which folders Thunderbird is considered subscribed? This is not a bandwidth issue. The issue is that Thunderbird is refusing to subscribe to more than a certain number of folders in my IMAP folder hierarchy.
Look at the sections in the kb article about Open files and Folder hierarchies, then inquire about the properties of your 'true IMAP server'.
sfhowes said
Look at the sections in the kb article about Open files and Folder hierarchies, then inquire about the properties of your 'true IMAP server'.
Can you provide a link to the KB article to which you refer?
And which properties in particular of my IMAP server should I be investigating?
Objectively speaking your answers are somewhat vague for me to follow up on.
The kb article in my first reply: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Limits_(Thunderbird)
I suggest you research the issue on Bugzilla.