IMAP Spam folder from AOL/Verizon not visible
Recently sorted my three e-mail accounts from a personal domain, AOL/Verizon and Google with Thunderbird (TB) including the Google Address Book. The address book is working find as are all of the folders except for AOL's Spam folder. When logged onto mail.aol.com there is a folder named Spam, but in Thunderbird there is a folder named Junk.
Syncing of the Inbox, Drafts (Draft in TB), Sent, Archive, and Trash folders all appear to be working fine, only the Spam (Junk in TB) folder is an issue. Syncing (Synchronization & Storage -> Advanced...) is enabled for all folders in the AOL/Verizon account. The Junk folder in TB can not be renamed or deleted.
Thunderbird does occasionally through and error when attempting to modify the Junk folder, but it does not seem to appear in the Error Console. It appears as a Windows notice, but can't be found in notifications. If I knew how to capture the error, I would gladly try to recreate the error and capture it.
Solution eye eponami
With IMAP accounts, user-created folders can be deleted or unsubscribed, but folders defined by the mail service should only be unsubscribed if they aren't needed.
I suggest you remove the account from Account Settings and the corresponding entries in Settings/Privacy & Security, Saved Passwords, restart TB, add the account as IMAP. Note that the Bulk folder is controlled by AOL's filters, while the (optional) TB Junk controls are separate from AOL's. I recommend using one or the other but not both.
Tanga eyano oyo ndenge esengeli 👍 1All Replies (5)
right-click on account name and click 'subscribe' to see if the SPAM folder is in the list.
The AOL folder that should be subscribed is named Bulk, even though it's named Spam in AOL webmail.
david #answer-1577276
Neither the Spam nor the Junk folders appear in the Subscribe window. Refresh doesn't have any effect. Selecting Unsubscribe and clicking OK and then returning to the window shows all the folders marked as subscribed.
sfhowes #answer-1577315
The folder Junk no longer appears under AOL/Verizon in Thunderbird. A folder named Bulk appears within Trash, it is subscribed and does contain messages that are flagged as spam. I'm fairly certain that I deleted the folder when I was sorting out the IMAP folders.
All attempts to restore the folder so far have failed.
Solution eye oponami
With IMAP accounts, user-created folders can be deleted or unsubscribed, but folders defined by the mail service should only be unsubscribed if they aren't needed.
I suggest you remove the account from Account Settings and the corresponding entries in Settings/Privacy & Security, Saved Passwords, restart TB, add the account as IMAP. Note that the Bulk folder is controlled by AOL's filters, while the (optional) TB Junk controls are separate from AOL's. I recommend using one or the other but not both.
It seems that the issue ran deeper than the Junk folder for my AOL/Verizon account. I finally ended up uninstalling Thunderbird and deleting the associated data folders (note: Thunderbird does a horrible job of cleaning up user data as part of the uninstall process and does not provide the option remove all data). Trying to reinstall without the mainual cleanup lead to a new set of problems. After that, I was able to reconfigure my private domain and Gmail without issue including Google Calendar. The AOL/Verizon account is having new problems which don't belong here.
I now know, based on "sflowers" comment about the name conflict
The AOL folder that should be subscribed is named Bulk, even though it's named Spam in AOL webmail.
combined with the actions I took to cleanup and normalize the account caused the problem.