I should also mention that (1) the outgoing Thunderbird email password changed to my new one without my doing anything---I saw the new one in the list when I checked to eliminate the inbound listing, which continued to show the old password---and I had been able to send emails through Thunderbird after changing my ATT/Yahoo mail password, and (2) ATT/Yahoo web mail works fine.

The article is out of date on two specific points:

Thunderbird doesn't provide a way for a user to enter the POP/IMAP/SMTP servers password when configuring a account. - wrong; when setting up a new account in the wizard, there is a box for the incoming password.

The only way to change a password saved by the password manager is to delete it - wrong; you can now right-click or double-click an existing entry to change it.

That doesn't make the article useless, just a bit misleading.

But given your second post, I'm not clear where you stand right now. What works? What doesn't work? And I'm really having trouble with the idea that somehow the right password just magically appeared. Only someone sitting there at the keyboard should have access to the password store.

I can send emails using Thunderbird, but I cannot receive them there.

I did nothing that I am aware of to retain the capacity to send emails in Thunderbird after having changed my ATT/Yahoo password in my AT&T account---it simply just continued to work.

I have no idea what sort of magic occurred to enable outgoing email with the new password.

To someone unacquainted with all of this, that article truly is useless.

I simply need to know how to reconstitute incoming email in Thunderbird. The line is gone---I deleted it, according to those "misleading" instructions---so there is nothing for me to right-click. Probably the answer is intuitive and very simple, but that is true only for those who understand this well enough not to have had to ask for help in the first place.

Thank you.

...Also, I just noticed that the outdated article shows July 16, 2015, as its last date of modification, 2.5 years ago. Probably I am not the only Thunderbird user to have had this problem.

Trying to do something to overcome this vexing issue, I clicked "Options," then "Account Settings." Finding nothing that would remediate the problem in the left-hand menu list, I tried "Account Actions" at the very bottom-left. This seemed to be encouraging.

I tried going through the "Add Mail Account" process, hoping that this would permit me to reenter the inbound line that I had removed while attempting to follow the article instructions. It would not do that, saying that there already was an outbound element in place.

There seemed no alternative but to "Remove Account," the last selection in the "Account Actions" drop-down list, and then reestablish the account. I did that. Perhaps I should have realized that this would do away with everything, but that's what happened. But at least as difficult, when I tried to send a test email to see if this account was working, I got this message:

"There is not enough disk space to download new messages. Try deleting old mail, emptying the Trash folder, and compacting your mail folders, and then try again."

The test email appeared in the ATT/Yahoo web mail inbox.

ADDENDUM: I'll bet this issue has something to do with the non-appearance in this "new" account of a "Sent" folder. All that appeared in the left-hand area is "Local Folders," with "Trash" and "Outbox" as subsets, and then my email address, with only "inbox" and "Trash" as subsets.

Nothing else has changed between when everything was fine and when I set this new account up, so I'm not sure I understand what this message is trying to tell me. I tried to save the test message, but Thunderbird would not save it.

Meanwhile, Thunderbird is populating my "new" in-box with every email that is in the ATT/Yahoo in-box (I had a bunch left in there), at the rate of one every 2/3 second.

So my original difficulty has been replaced by a new and equally irritating one. Questions:

1. Is there a document---not outdated---that explains exactly what I need to do to completely establish this "new" account with all the functionality it is supposed to have?

2. How can I recover the contents of the other standard email files (Trash, Saved, Junk, etc.) and email files I created for sorted storage of messages (Organizations, HOA, Commercial Long-Term, Commercial Short-Term, etc.) and reconstitute them in this new account so that it will have the content and functionality of the old one?

[IDEA: I realize that this would take some doing, but has anyone ever thought of establishing what amounts to a user guide, where everything would be organized by topics in one place with links to what would amount to chapters, sections, and topics? I quite obviously do not have more than rudimentary understanding of the tech stuff here, but I am greatly experienced at writing, editing, and organizing written materials. Perhaps some folks with similar skills could cooperate with those such as yourself, who have the technical expertise, to do this. The lack of centralized, easily accessed assistance of the sort commonly found serving commercial products is one large impediment to the use of software such as this great one.]

UPDATE: For some reason, the recovery of emails still in the ATT/Yahoo inbox stopped before all were retrieved. Is there a way to pull the rest of these into Thunderbird's inbox? I just tried clicking "Get Messages," which restarted the download. Maybe it seems obvious, but I did not think of it immediately given that I had not done this to begin the process, which started by itself.

Thank you.

http://en.flossmanuals.net/Thunderbird/

I don't know what edition---that is, date of production---this manual is, but thank you. I found an earlier one (2009), but I did not find this one. I hope it is a more recent date (there is no date on it that I can see). I will consult it to see if it will tell me how to reestablish "Sent," "Draft," and "Junk" folders, for three, given that they are not there on this newly established (actually reestablished) account, and I can find no way that works to produce these folders in the blizzard of miscellany a Google search produces.

I urgently hope this manual deals with issues such as what I now am experiencing and is not just a general sort of document that assumes things are going along mostly fine. I will post again, either declaring that this problem is resolved or not, after I have a chance to consult the manual.

Thanks again.

Progression of this matter—

A. The Floss manual would, I’m sure, be quite useful in less narrowly difficult situations, but I could find nothing in it of direct assistance in this case.

B. Day before yesterday, for no apparent reason—I certainly did not do anything conscious to provoke this at the time—Thunderbird suddenly popped in a “Sent” folder. This made sending emails much easier, given that I was not hampered by continuing notices that made me wonder if they actually had been sent. Until then, I had made myself a bcc recipient of every email just so I would know that the emails went out.

C. Now, on to attempts at remediation since my last post, most particularly those actions you were good enough to direct in the locked string, to be completed prior to my posting again:

1. Although I have no add-ons nor themes, unusual though this may be, I followed the procedure you directed anyway, without of course disabling anything given that there was nothing to disable, but I did it nonetheless so that I could report having done it.

2. As you also directed, I shut down the computer (running Windows 7) and restarted it in safe mode according to Microsoft’s instructions. Bringing up Thunderbird showed no change in it. I let it sit for awhile just to see if something would happen, but it did not.

3. I restarted Windows in normal mode and ran a virus scan, which detected no threats; a rootkit scan showed none; and a scan for malware was run, none detected. Just for drill, I defragmented the C drive and cleaned up the disc. All of this produced no change in Thunderbird.

4. I repeated step 2 to no effect.

D. Aside from TurboTax, no new software has been installed in the past 12 months. The software that updates from the internet, either automatically or manually (e.g., TurboTax, Windows), has been doing this as they normally do, to no evident ill effect whatsoever. Nothing else but Thunderbird has been or is behaving any differently from usual in any way at all. The computer is not slowed down, does not react differently from expected, nor are there any anomalies, unexplained transient occurrences, or other oddities at all. There is only this Thunderbird issue.

E. However, just as happened in item B above, a “Drafts” folder abruptly appeared. This was about 20 minutes after I had restarted the computer following completion step 4. This has resulted in the ceasing of the mind-numbing appearance of a pop-up window every 30 or so seconds while I was attempting to write an email; this pop-up window advised me that the email could not be saved. I could continue only by dismissing the pop-up window, whereupon, 30 seconds later, it would appear again, and again, and again. No doubt the appearance of the “Drafts” folder now means that Thunderbird can indeed save emails in process of being created.

F. Perhaps I should be grateful that the greater issues have resolved themselves for no apparent or detectibly logical reasons at all and just forget about the whole thing. Although I am glad for this erratically staged restoration of what appears to be close to full functionality of Thunderbird, I have no idea how it happened, which is extremely troubling.

Can you shed light here? After all, not knowing why something happens makes it tough to prevent from happening again.