In Thunderbird - remote content is disabled by default, so even if any email with remote content was opened then nothing would happen. That's assuming you have not decided to enable it.

The Junk/Spam folder is a special case and regardless of your remote content settings Thunderbird does not permit any enabling of remote content. You have to set as not junk and move back to Inbox in order to manually select to see the remote content in that email.

Thunderbird takes security seriously, so you can rest assured it's not as bad as you first imagined.

The only place a register of 'read' may occur is on your server and that is also assuming you are using an imap account.

However, please check your settings as you may something set up to auto mark as read.

• Settings > Privacy & Security
• Scroll to 'Junk' section
• uncheck 'Mark messages determined to be junk as read'

it's not that it's as bad as i imagined, it's that it shouldn't happen at all. it's such a small thing and when the other emails are moved to other folders they are not marked as read, so it should be the default. i do run an i t security company so i think of security just a little more than most folks but this is an easy fix and one that while it may not have any uses to bad guys now that does not mean it doesn't have one sitting there waiting on someone to find it right now. don't get me wrong, i don't think that this in any way can be used for anything bad, at least right now, but if the notification gets past the local server then it gets back to the sender and it is worth it to me to keep that information away from them.

i appreciate the answer, but how would one ask a dev to make moving spam work like moving anything else?

edit: and i checked that part, it was unchecked already. thanx for replying! have a great weekend.

re : i appreciate the answer, but how would one ask a dev to make moving spam work like moving anything else?

First we would need to find out how they are getting marked as read because you say you are using the default do not mark as read.

Thunderbird default is to not mark as read. The following should auto be unchecked.

• uncheck 'Mark messages determined to be junk as read'

You say " and i checked that part, it was unchecked already. " This setting deals with any emails that you mark as junk or Thunderbird marks as junk via junk Controls..

Just checking... but those emails that are in Spam/Junk: Do they have a red/yellow junk flame icon or is it grey ?

If it red/yellow then Thunderbird marked it as Junk. If it is grey then the server marked it as spam and put it into the server spam folder. If grey then please logon to webmail account and find out if you have a setting which is auto marking spam as read.

re:stop letting thunderbird open the email when it moves to the spam folder. Do you find the spam email when moved to Spam/Junk is auto opened and displaying in the Message Pane ?

Do you have any Message Filters which mark certain emails as Junk and put into Spam/Junk Folder? If yes, Do you notice if it is only those emails that seem to get marked as read?

Or...is it you manually marking an unopened email in list as Junk via right click Mark as Junk and it is those emails which get marked as read ?

-Just checking... but those emails that are in Spam/Junk: Do they have a red/yellow junk flame icon or is it grey ?- most of them don't have anything there, no flames at all, but the ones that have them are all red. -Do you find the spam email when moved to Spam/Junk is auto opened and displaying in the Message Pane ?- message pane disabled so no way to tell, but i suspect it would not. -Do you have any Message Filters which mark certain emails as Junk and put into Spam/Junk Folder? If yes, Do you notice if it is only those emails that seem to get marked as read?- yes i have the filters set and no they do not become opened after they are moved. this is how i can tell the default is not to open them and that it should not be a big deal to make all of them unopened when they are moved. -Or...is it you manually marking an unopened email in list as Junk via right click Mark as Junk and it is those emails which get marked as read ?- when i just tried it, it marked the email as junk after it opened it first, then left it in the folder it was in, a local folder i had a rule to move it to. then since i had no unopened email in the inbox, i marked one as unread, then as junk. it opened the email immediately then moved it to the spam folder and left it opened. when i marked it as not junk, it went back to the inbox and was marked unread.

this is not a good behavior and it needs to be fixed. if it can intercept spam that i have marked as junk manually and not open it when moving it, then it can also not open the damned thing when i mark it as junk.

Your question say this: thunderbird opens spam emails when moving to spam folder

The only way you would know if an email had been opened would be to enable the Message Pane and then select the 'Junk/Spam folder. Do NOT select anything in the list of emails in that folder. Is there spam emails auto displaying in the Message Pane and you have never selected them at any point?

re :message pane disabled so no way to tell,

Then the emails are not being opened. I expect that if Message Pane was enabled you would not see anything it unless you selected something in the Junk spam folder.

So i think you are asking the wrong question. This has nothing to do with opened emails.

I think you are talking about emails in the junk folder which are being 'marked as read' - aka they are not bold. Is that correct?

re :when i just tried it, it marked the email as junk after it opened it first, then left it in the folder it was in,

How can it be opened if you do not have the 'Message Pane' enabled ?

I do not think you are using the correct terminology. Opening an email means you single clicked on the email in the list and it opened in the 'Message Pane' so you can see the content of that opened email OR you double clicked on email in list to open in a new tab so you can see the contents.

Somehow, I think you are talking about emails that are getting 'marked as read' - email in list bold font becomes not bold and the green button which indictates it is unread gets switched off.

Just been testing this on a gmail imap account. Have an email in Inbox which I've marked as unread. Font is bold and it has a green button. I select an email above just to make sure target email is not selected so it is not open. Right click on target email and select 'Mark as Junk'

AS per my account settings and preferences - Email gets moved to 'Spam' and when I look in spam it is now marked as read.

I'm going to put this action as a bug. It should never be marked as read. Bug reported:

• https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1860444