Thunderbird Community Forum

I'm trying to restore my Thunderbird mailboxes from my old (essentially dead) computer's backup to a new computer. My first attempt failed. I need to understand what went wrong and how to correct it.

I installed Thunderbird on the new computer and used Profile Manager to create a profile in the location where I want to keep it (in the Documents folder, to simplify backup). Then I found the place where the mailboxes were kept and copied my old mailboxes there from the backup.

Then I started Thunderbird. Instead of displaying my old Inbox and a list of mailboxes, it displayed a screen that prompted me to define my email account. OK, that's fair; if the account information wasn't in the files I copied, Thunderbird would have to do that. After I defined the accounts (there are three), I quit and restarted Thunderbird, and it displayed my Inbox and mailboxes.

But not quite as I expected. I expected to see the mail that was on the old computer when I last backed it up. Then I planned to download mail to get everything that came in after that. Instead I found that Thunderbird had erased everything I copied over, then downloaded the new mail without me asking it to.

Now what? The new mail is still on the server, so I can repeat the whole process if I have to. First, though, I need to understand what went wrong.

Owing to a price rise in MS Office, I had been looking to move to free software. Unfortunately for email this isn't working. I have downloaded Thunderbird and have tried to transfer my Outlook data there. I started two weeks ago and on average believe the process has been running a few hours a day, for much of the time when I look occupying 0% of CPU capacity, and most of the time not rising above 1%. The import has been stuck at 33% for that time, which I assume means that it imported Accounts and Settings or Address Books quickly and is taking a very long time to import Mail Messages. (It imported the couple of month's worth on webmail quite quickly.) Likely this is owing to the size of the Outlook file, 5 GB. Does this essentially make the transfer impossible? For how large a file could Thunderbird do a successful import?

Hi,

I set up my email accounts using POP3. I now realize I should have set them up using IMAP. Since I originally set things up using POP3, all my emails have been downloaded to my computer, and have been deleted from my provider's server. I have now created a new email account using IMAP. Is there a way to import the emails from the POP3 Thunderbird folder, into my newly created IMAP folder?

Software MIGHT be useful if it didn't take over 48 hours to download emails. But it does, so it isn't, in fact, that essentially renders it useless, too bad, so sad, time to uninstall mozzie mosquito anything and install anything else...

I have a custom email that I use for work and I was not able to get it working on Thunderbird. When I add the email/password, it detects the settings and then says it cannot confirm the password.

To workaround this, I only add the email, and then when it detects settings, it asks me to input the password. And when I do that, it adds the account and attempts to read my incoming STMP server. I get an error that it times out. And when I try to send emails, it says it cannot access the outgoing STMP.

I use cpanel and when I access my email via roundcube, it shows me my messages. I have cloudflare set up via namecheap with the correct DNS records. My other email clients (gmail/outlook) work fine. I have reinstalled thunderbird so Im not sure what else I can do

Sometimes when I copy & past part of an article, et,c it changes some of the format settings for TB email. I've been unable to change text style back to the original setting of the email. What I pasted will have ended in a footnote in superscript and I can't change the text style back to no specific text style or any other text style. IIf i click on discontinue text styles (in Format menu) if I try to continue typing email message it'll still be in superscript. This has happened multiple times. I can skip to the next line, doesn't matter, superscript will still be the text style, not the original text style of the email.

How do I return the text style to the original settings?

I have an e-mail account at work that goes through gmail. So how do I set up Thunderbird to access it? I have tried many times.

Let's say I have the following:

Full Name: Billy Budd E-mail address: [edited] @acme.com password: [edited]

I access this account though gmail. So how do I set up this account in Thunderbird so I can get all those e-mails and attachments on my local computer?

Thanks in advance.

Hello helpful community, Yesterday after first updating my mac ios, I updated Thunderbird (as directed) on my macbook pro and discovered that my local folders are gone. I now have version 128.7.0esr. I have read other conversations here about this problem but they are WAY over my head, and seem to do with PCs. Can you help me restore my local folders with instructions I can hopefully understand? Thank you!

I am receiving e-mails minus any graphics, such as those in 'WHICH' magazine articles or other advertising messages. Have I accedentally deleted or altered a setting somewhere?

Have attahed a screenshot of an advert from a company IJT Direct re a printer as an example.

Norman Ireland

Hello, I did just make a clean reinstallation of Thunderbird and while going through the setting I have notices that at Passwords / Save Passwords / `Show Passwords` my Account Passwords can be access with less effort.

My question now is, why is this even a feature?

In my mind, this should be by default off. Or at least informed me at the first account setup that my passwords are visible in the Settings, and if I want to set up a Master Password as well.

Is there an option to have the Button `Show Password` disable? Or if a Master Password have to be, then set it for only access `Show Password` but not for the login in to Thunderbird.

How do i change the highlight color of line items in my inbox? I just installed the program on a new computer. It is showing a pink color in my INBOX and want to change to blue. Thank you

I am new to Thurnderbird, so I need help with sending emails. I have already gotten the folders with email addresses, however when I create a message I have no place where it shows Send.

I am looking at my email. I open one message into a tab on day 1. I leave the tab open. I do this again for two days. I now have three tables open. They are in the order:

Inbox day1msg day2msg day3msg

So, the message I opened most recently is ... farthest away? Is this intuitive to someone? Can I reverse the sort order here so that the messages I have most recently interacted with are most visible to me?

I want:

Inbox day3msg day2msg day1msg

I have looked for a config name and in the forums here, but am not seeing it. I am not sure what it would be called. Perhaps "tab order". But it is not message order and that is what _all_ of the posts are about.

Trying to Import a csv address book file to Thunderbird address book. Unable to get 'Match field names' to work. Unable to set/change any Address book field names. Each field name seems to be fixed / frozen to the default name of the expected column/ field name.

There is a drop down list for each field, but only one option exists in the drop down list. So, I can not get my csv to translate/convert over to the Thunderbird fields.

Same problem seems to exist in Betterbird. Thanks for any help.

Phil Payne USA

Hello! After the reboot, crash, etc, the inbox index is not build, until I click the inbox. And until the index is not build, there is no incoming mail. But after there is a index, it will not downloading the mails in which i received while the index was down. I use pop3 for the google (I tried imap, but there will some issue with that (I think the two fact account), so i failed back to pop3) So after the restart the thunderbird, I losing all email until i click the inbox, force it to rebuild the index.

Is there any help for that?

thanx

To: Support personnel or Manu Andino Thank you for your help this morning on restoring the Thunderbird email server. It did crash again this afternoon 3/3/25 in the middle of writing/responding to an email. Any help you can give is appreciated. Thank you- Paul Behrmann