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Thunderbird is very slow and in bottom right shows 97% full. How do I fix this?

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  • 1 inayo le ngxaki
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  • Impendulo yokugqibela ngu galencg

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Thunderbird is getting very slow. I notice in the lower right corner that it gives an indication of 97% full. I get many emails in a day. Right now my inbox has a little over 15,500 unread messages. I have gone to my email server and deleted messages from there, but that did not resolve the problem. TB is just getting slower and slower.

Does Thunderbird have a limit on the number of emails it can work with?

How do I fix the problem of 97% full? Can I somehow increase the space available to TB? Is there a setting in options that will help fix the issue?

Thanks in advance. Any suggestions appreciated.

Thunderbird is getting very slow. I notice in the lower right corner that it gives an indication of 97% full. I get many emails in a day. Right now my inbox has a little over 15,500 unread messages. I have gone to my email server and deleted messages from there, but that did not resolve the problem. TB is just getting slower and slower. Does Thunderbird have a limit on the number of emails it can work with? How do I fix the problem of 97% full? Can I somehow increase the space available to TB? Is there a setting in options that will help fix the issue? Thanks in advance. Any suggestions appreciated.

Isisombulu esikhethiweyo

Hi galencg, When adding an account, Thunderbird defaults to IMAP and keeping a local copy of messages to offline reading.

The first thing I would recommend is to move messages out of your Inbox. I suspect just trying to load a folder with 15,500 messages is going to take a while. If all those messages are new, I would recommend setting up a filter on the server to automatically move messages to sub-folders based on different criteria.

To stop Thunderbird from storing a local copy of each message, go to [=] > Options > Account Settings > [Your account name] > Synchronization & Storage, and uncheck Keep messages for this account on this computer.

Funda le mpendulo kwimeko leyo 👍 0

All Replies (5)

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this reading could be pulling for the server it self where you didn't make changes to option save emails on server. un checking it will empty the server emails i leave message on server in case my system fails, so be sure your checking and deleting from the server too.

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Thank for the suggestion.

This is a gmail account setup with IMAP protocol. The POP3 protocol has option to save emails on server, but no option like that for the IMAP protocol.

Thanks again.

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you can use imap just change the port 993 incoming and smtp is 465 then choose the ssl/tls option gmail uses auth for mail as well cause of the ssl, a lot of services pulled from pop uses due to security and causing of other problems too reboot system sometimes helps

Ilungisiwe ngu user1533281

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Isisombululo esiKhethiweyo

Hi galencg, When adding an account, Thunderbird defaults to IMAP and keeping a local copy of messages to offline reading.

The first thing I would recommend is to move messages out of your Inbox. I suspect just trying to load a folder with 15,500 messages is going to take a while. If all those messages are new, I would recommend setting up a filter on the server to automatically move messages to sub-folders based on different criteria.

To stop Thunderbird from storing a local copy of each message, go to [=] > Options > Account Settings > [Your account name] > Synchronization & Storage, and uncheck Keep messages for this account on this computer.

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Thanks for your suggestion. Greatly appreciated.