turning blue means there is new mail. But it may be your account is IMAP and you have not subscribed to the folder with the new mail in it, like a spam folder.

Right click the account in the folder pane, select subscribe and see if you have any unsubscribed folders.

No they're POP accounts, all of them. And they do turn blue when there's new mail. But they also turn blue when there is no new mail.

Edit I could show a screenshot if it would be helpful.

Edit #2 screenshot attached, but with personal info purpled out - so you can see that the account names are blue, but none of the folders are blue, so they don't have any new mail in them.

But you appear to have unread messages in the Inboxes. They are shown with bold type.

Thunderbird makes a distinction between "new" and "unread". "Unread" is obvious and intuitive, "new" less so. It seems to mean a message that has arrived since the last time you looked. By definition a new message is also unread, up until when you start using filters to automatically process messages.

I think the unread messages in your Inboxes are being summarised, so to speak, by the blue applied to the account name.

I guess the blue was chosen for the top level display of accounts because their names are already in bold text just to set them off from their subfolders.

Hhmm, I don't understand your comment about filters, because I do have a few custom filters. But the messages are still unread until I double-click on them, to open.

If that's the case, that blue means "unread" or maybe "unopened", (depending on your settings), then the developers must be thinking most users are occassional email users, who not only keep the accounts folded up (or not expanded or not dropped down), so that only the account name is showing, but who maybe don't even open the program every day.

Because for people who have a lot of folders, well, at least it makes sense to me to keep them all expanded, so I can see which folders have new messages. I don't need the blue color to know that there are unopened messages, because I can clearly see them in the list. And it doesn't make sense to keep them folded up, because I would have to unfold and refold them many times per day. I will be opening Thunderbird once per day, and keeping it open and checking it frequently, all day long.

3 of my folders are mailing lists, which sometimes receive 20 messages daily, and sometimes more. I can't think of anyone who subscribes to a mailing list, who probably reads every single message that comes through the list. Of course there are always going to be unread messages....again, unless you are just an occassional user of email.

I wonder if this should be an optional feature? Because there's a good chance it's going to annoy me so much, that my search for a Windows Live Mail replacement won't stop with Thunderbird.

Although it was so close! It's taken me a week to finally understand and configure all the features and options I want, and I was happy I wasn't going to have to look any further for a replacement. Is there any chance this could be made optional, so that user can choose what it signifies? Like maybe some people want it to indicate unopened or unread messages, but others might prefer it to indicate new messages. Or is there any chance it could be removed entirely?

Would it be possible for me to make a comment about it, to developers, without having to register a new account on a new forum or subscribe to a mailing list?

Thank you very much!

brynn2 said

I wonder if this should be an optional feature? Because there's a good chance it's going to annoy me so much, that my search for a Windows Live Mail replacement won't stop with Thunderbird.

Although on 2nd thought, eventually all my accounts will be showing blue, all the time. So when that happens, it probably won't matter anymore. As long as the folders still go blue, or give some kind of indication about new mail.

Still kind of an uneeded feature, in my opinion. Or maybe it should only be activated when the account is folded up?

But as long as it doesn't annoy me, I can live with it  :-)

Thanks again for your help and patience!

Personally I let my filters do their thing and then track down the unread messages, wherever they are, via View|Folders|Unread. Some of my filters will mark messages as read because by nature they simply are not urgent; I know where to find them if I need to check.

Another thought; have a look at Saved Search folders. They offer a custom view of messages that meet certain criteria, such as unread, or from a particular sender, in a given address book etc. but with the refinement that you can specify which folders they include in their working.

So you mean that you never expand the accounts, and that you use the View menu > Folders to display the unread messages?

That would be fine, except that I frequently need to find and re-read messages. So ultimately, I would still need to expand the account name, to see the inbox.

I can't find anything called Saved Search. Could you give me a clue?

Thanks