Hi Pamela,

Thunderbird is checking for new mail every 10 minutes by default, so I think your e-mail will arrive even without hammering the Get Mail button :)

However it would help to know if you chose POP3 or IMAP in your account settings. Usually IMAP works best, if your provider supports it.

When fetching e-mail, some providers limit the amount of messages that can be fetched at once. Could that be a reason?

Hi Sander G. Thanks for your post. Email is Gmail. Setting is POP3. And I will check if there is a limit from the provider. Thanks!

I would strongly recommend to not use POP3 but use IMAP with Gmail. That will really make you happier. Hope this helps! :)

I looked under account settings and didn't find out how to change from POP3 to IMAP. I continued to download email and am up to Sept 2011 but now Thunderbird says that my mailbox is full. "The folder Inbox is full, and can't hold any more messages. To make room for more messages, delete any old or unwanted mail and compact the folder." I don't have this problem on my desktop at work. Not sure why it's a problem on my notebook.

You can not change an existing account, only create a new one in the desired type and delete the other.

Gmail does have a limit on the amount of bandwidth you can have each day. It is generous, but not up to downloading Gigabytes of old mail.

If you were to disable email scanning in your anti virus the 15 limit will probably go away. It is usually the anti virus that can not cope and breaks down first. Just remember that gmail are not in the habit of putting a virus into your inbox anyway.