Imap mail accounts see a remote view of emails held on the server. Anything you do in either imap mail account or webmail account that views those same folders, will set modifications on the server.

In effect, the folders and emails are on server, the ones you see in Thunderbird imap mail account are one and the same.

You cannot mark as read and not stop the server from doing the same to emails on server, therefore any one who sees that email from another remote access of same folders, will see exactly what is on server- a marked as read email. This is how all imap mail accounts work. It is not a quirk of Thunderbird.

You have to find a way to work around the situation.

Possible options to consider: If you open and read an email: 1: move it to another suitably named imap folder eg: TO DO and remember to mark it as unread afterwards. The other user then knows anything in that TO DO folder has been read by you.

2. Move a copy to your Local Folders mail account and read it from there, so you never actually read any emails in the imap mail account.

3. Set up your options so that they do not auto mark as read: 'Menu icon' > 'Options' > 'Options' > 'Display' > 'Advanced' tab uncheck 'Automatically mark mesages as read' click on OK

Then you have to manually mark as read if required. This option could be combined with using 'Local Folders' for emails or using specific folders for emails you have seen but other user needs to read.

4 You could decide to use 'tags' to mark emails if you have seen it.

But if you open an email in an imap folder and it is auto marked as read, either you have to manually reset to 'unread' or stop the auto marking as read and then you have to manually 'mark as read'.

Some people synchronise for offline use to get a full download, then whilst in offline mode, copy everything over to Local Folders. then go back online, but only read emails in 'Local Folders' using the auto mark as read setting. The trouble is, if both of you are doing that, how do either of you know the other has seen it ? Hence why I suggest creating new imap folders, ones specifically designed to contain emails to be dealt with by specific people. Another folder could hold any emails that have been dealt with by either person. So then both people know what is done and who has responsibility for the email.

Hopefully this info will give you some ideas, so you can come up with a solution that works best for you.

Hello Toad Hall

Thanks for your reply.

I understand your point about and thinks no. 3 will be the solution i will try.

Regards FTLX