Thunderbird Community Forum

I am struggling to connect Thunderbird to my Gmail account and get all the labels/folders consistent over all the mail clients I use. I use several mail clients and usually end up with a bunch of labels that duplicate another one, so I am trying to clean it up. I should add that what is below is my best interpretation of what is happening, but it may not be correct.

I have been following the advice here:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-and-gmail#w_understanding-gmail-labels-and-thunderbird-folders

and here:

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/78892#zippy=%2Cthunderbird

This is Thunderbird 128.5.0esr (64-bit) on Mac Monterey.

Ok, so I have a Gmail account set up to use UK English. I get labels Spam and Bin.

(If I have a Gmail account set up to use US English, I get Junk and Trash. Got to wonder what Google was thinking in making them different! Oddly enough, US English gets Vacation Responder while UK English gets Out-of-office Autoreply.)

Thunderbird seems to sometimes want to use Junk and Trash, whether set to US English or GB English (=UK). This appears to be tied to the Junk Settings for the account in Thunderbird. If I disable adaptive junk mail controls, I get a new folder called Junk, and the Bin folder seems to be renamed to Trash. If I had not disabled it, presumably TB would have been happy to use Bin and Spam, but the link above suggests disabling it and letting Gmail handle spam. While it is good, it is nowhere near perfect. (If I then re-enable adaptive junk mail controls, nothing changes. It does not go back to what it was. I still have Spam, Trash and Junk.)

However, Gmail itself is still showing labels Spam and Bin and no Junk. In Junk Settings for the account, Destination & Retention, it is possible to tell TB where to put junk messages. In particular, I can sometimes tell it to put the messages in Spam. But not always. Sometimes Spam is not visible as an option but Junk is.

So then I go to Synchronization & Storage, the Advanced button. This shows that Spam and Trash are not checked so will not be downloaded (or uploaded). Junk, however, is checked and will be downloaded.

I think this means that any messages sent to Spam or Trash in TB will not be reflected on Gmail. I guess they will disappear from the original label on Gmail, but will not be visible on any other device accessing the Gmail account. Re-enabling adaptive junk mail controls does not change what is being synchronized.

It all seems a bit flakey. I suspect both links above need updating. In particular, the reference to [Gmail] folder seems out of date since setting up a new account has no references to a folder of that name. All the folders appear at the top level.

And there are definitely some inconsistencies in what TB does.

Hi, I Changed IMAP to POP3, rebuilt Inbox.MSF and it worked for a few hours. Now, I cannot get control of the Thunderbird screen (it is grayed out and "the wheel is turning") I've also tried to Shift click to start Thunderbird to start in Troubleshoot mode and checked both boxes. (I get control for approximately 15 seconds). I am running Windows 11 with 128 Gb of RAM and enough disk space. What should I do now?

BTW, I am an I/T professional, so you may use jargon in your response.

Thank you in advance.

Just wondering.... If I have 2x email addresses, and forward a message from Email#1 to Email#2 (ie automatically through the settings on the email#1 account), when receiving in Thunderbird, would, or should, this info show up in the full headers of Email#2, and if so, how?

Thanks.

I have a recurring problem with mail becoming stuck in my Outbox. The symptom is that I discover, after hours of working, sending mail, and receiving mail, that the "sent" mail is all actually stuck in Local Folders Outbox. If I click on Outbox I can see the email messages that are waiting to go out. The only way to get them to go out is to quit Thunderbird and then restart, at which point I can see them go out, one by one.

This has happened to me many, many times, but not every day - or even every week. It's hard to pin down what what is causing the problem, but I have a feeling that it is vpn related.

My normal mode of operation (on a Macbook Pro) is to switch back and forth between home and work networks (or travel networks) without logging out or quitting tasks (including Thunderbird). I don't think that's the problem. While I am working, I frequently have to switch to an internal vpn to access various things. I don't like to run video conferencing or other high bandwidth tasks through the vpn server, so I generally disconnect when I don't need it. I *think* Thunderbird is sometimes getting confused about the network - perhaps when I've started composing an email with vpn running but switching vpn off before sending. Honestly, though, I think I do that so often that this can't be the core issue. So:

Question 1: Has anyone seen this and found a solution?

I've tried just writing a cron job that watches the file "Unsent Messages" in

/Users/myname/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/[profilename]/Mail/Local Folders

I just check to see if there are messages in there, and send myself a notice. However, this doesn't work because that file doesn't actually seem to empty itself once messages go out. It doesn't save all outgoing mail, but it saves a bunch, so my trick won't work.

Question 2: Does anyone know why the Unsent Messages file doesn't clear once the messages go out?

Question 3: Is there some other indicator that I can probe to see if there is stuck outgoing mail?

Sorry for the long description. I wanted to be as complete as possible. Thanks for any help.

I allowed windows (11) to apply updates. Afterwards, my Thunderbird email cannot see the email in any folders except only unopened email in inbox. The data still seems to be in the files.

Spent 2 hours with Dell support, who were unable to resolve and they say it's due to Thunderbird, which re-installed itself (?) around the same time as the windows update.

Any help? Thanks.

I recently installed "Thunderbird android" on my smartphone (Pixel 6a, Android 14) and since I have been using the "K9Mail" app for years, for the Thunderbird configuration I executed the "import from app" following the instructions on this page: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-android-import

I imported several accounts (pop3 accounts and imap accounts). The operation was very simple and went well, except for one aspect... let's say that I would have expected that the import would have also copied the emails from K9Mail to Thunderbird. Instead, this was not the case. I don't know if it's a mistake or something wanted, in any case this fact forces me to keep both applications on my smartphone, Thunderbird to read new emails, K9Mail to read old ones (in fact, sometimes it's useful for me to have old emails available from my phone too).

Do you know if there's any other way to transfer all the emails from one app to the other? Thanks in advance!

There is a problem with my Drafts folder. It says that there are 3 messages, and shows the icon for 2 new messages in the folder, but when I try to open the folder, it says No Messages Found. What is going on here? (Please see the uploaded image.)

I get the whirly thing while it says "looking up ...". This problem appeared suddenly without any recent updating and now persists 100% of the time over the last week or so. I cannot access the menu or anything. I tried reinstalling TB with no change. There are no other apps with any network/internet problems. I'm thinking I have to open terminal and do something like clear cache/cookies, etc. but can't figure out what specifically to do to accomplish this. Any other ideas?

I responded that I was having a problem editing & sending an e-mail when I got a message from Thunderbird saying that Thunderbird had crashed. I responded that the e-mail message that I was working on was "Fwd: Memories". It wasn't... I was working on "Fwd: Do You Remember". I don't know if that makes any difference; but I lost all of the changes that I had made so far to that e-mail.

I am currently unable to connect to my 'comcast.net' email. It was working fine until 12:20 on Nov 29. Thunderbird had just installed the latest updates (128.5.0esr (32bit))and it seemed to be OK. At about 1430 I was at xfinity store and made changes to my cable TV package. I informed the agent about my email problem, but he wasn't able to provide any help. When I returned home, I was still (and currently) unable to connect to the email server. When I 'click' get mail the 'system' tries to connect (the little blue line in the lower right corner is active and I soon get a message 'unable to connect'). I have been into SETTINGS and ACCOUNT SETTINGS numerous times and have made some changes with no success. I am wondering if it is a password issue (how to fix?) or a change somewhere else that I haven't found. I note thunderbird has 'recently' added encrypted requirements, Is there something there I should know about? I do not use a proxy server and have set for NO PROXY on internet connections. All of my other 'normal' internet sites seem to work OK. What am I missing? appreciate any ideas. John

First started yesterday afternoon, after working just fine in the morning, it would not save to SENT folder. Now this morning it will also not save to DRAFTS (in tools>account settings>copies & folders>place a copy in) both of those are checked properly. PLUS, I have two email accounts in Thunderbird, and it now keeps popping up that it cannot sign into one of those accounts.

It is up-to-date, I have cleared the start-up cache. Don't know what to do next to solve these issues.

Thanks NM.

Bonjour, je voudrais importer les contacts de mon compte Gmail dans ma messagerie Thunderbird, le fichier des contacts Gmail est au format .csv Comment faire pour que ce fichier soit totalement exploitable pour créer le carnet d'adresses au niveau de Thunderbird ? Faut-il convertir le fichier contacts.csv de Gmail pour retrouver un carnet d'adresses valide de la même façon qu'il est exploité au niveau de mon compte Gmail  ? Merci infiniment pour toute solution. Mon système d'exploitation est Windows 11 et le logiciel Thunderbird est à la version 128.5 Joël GRIVET

junk e-mails are automatically deleted and not put into the junk folder. I need to check the junk mail folder.

Help please - I can't find info on the net on how to fix this. I have done everything that I was able to find.

I just updated to the latest Thunderbird version 128.5.0esr, Build ID 20241125170630 and after relaunching, all the email in my Sent folder is gone.

Running on a Windows 10 machine. Can someone explain or help guide & restore my old Sent folder?

Thanks!

Hi

I am unable to connect to TELUS email which is operated by Google. The unit is a new SAMSUNG Tablet 9A and is owned by a friend. I installed Thunderbird for Android on the unit. I cannot set it up because it requires OAuth2 Authentication and it is not available within the TB for Android. I use TB on many units using Linux and they work fine.

I do not want to use Gmail client but maybe I have to. Is there anyone aware of how to solve this problem so I can set him up with TB, which I prefer? Robert

Hello vols, My Thunderbird email has suddenly asked for a password to login to imap server. When entered, password is not accepted. No passwords have been changed on my email server. Help. I am now unable to receive emails. Many thanks Ian

I am with Activ8me, that is my internet provider, since your program update my email no longer opens and I cannot send emails, i have been on the phone for an hour with my provider and they have tried many things, nothing ever changed or worked, when I try to open Thunderbird it tells me the server may have gone down or there may be a network problem, if i try to send an email it tells me, peer reports incompatible or unsupported protocol versions and the configuration needs to be corrected, The Techs at Activ8me could not get it to work, they think there must be an issue with Thunderbirds new program, can you look into this please and see why activ8 emails do not work on here any more, hopefully someone can provide for me a complete and easy to follow guide that will fix this issue, Thanks, Ray