Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

New messages in IMAP folders do not automatically show.

  • 3 replies
  • 5 have this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by Wayne Mery

more options

I have an IMAP account with multiple folders in it, which each receive email directly. It seems like Thunderbird expects all messages to come into INBOX and be filtered into folders from there, but my email server pre-filters messages into folders.

The consequence of this is that to be truly sure I have no email, after I manually select "Get All New Messages" ... I need to open every folder, or at least quickly run through each folder by selecting INBOX and using my down arrow-key to select each folder, which triggers a refresh of that folder.

Only once the folders are manually refreshed by me selecting them, are new message counts shown. And there is a several-second delay for this, each time. Automatically checking and refreshing each folder on an IMAP account seems appropriate, at least as a configuration option, if not by default.

I have an IMAP account with multiple folders in it, which each receive email directly. It seems like Thunderbird expects all messages to come into INBOX and be filtered into folders from there, but my email server pre-filters messages into folders. The consequence of this is that to be truly sure I have no email, after I manually select "Get All New Messages" ... I need to open every folder, or at least quickly run through each folder by selecting INBOX and using my down arrow-key to select each folder, which triggers a refresh of that folder. Only once the folders are manually refreshed by me selecting them, are new message counts shown. And there is a several-second delay for this, each time. Automatically checking and refreshing each folder on an IMAP account seems appropriate, at least as a configuration option, if not by default.

Chosen solution

Set mail . check_all_imap_folders_for_new to true

per http://kb.mozillazine.org/Mail_and_news_settings

Or if you need this for only one account of several, right+click folder, properties, enable "When getting new ..."

Note however, depending on your server and other factors this is not a performance option

Read this answer in context 👍 2

All Replies (3)

more options

Chosen Solution

Set mail . check_all_imap_folders_for_new to true

per http://kb.mozillazine.org/Mail_and_news_settings

Or if you need this for only one account of several, right+click folder, properties, enable "When getting new ..."

Note however, depending on your server and other factors this is not a performance option

more options

Thank you @Wayne, that resolves my issue. That was very fast, and very much appreciated!

more options

You are welcome. Please join us in helping other users here in support.mozilla.org