Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

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

Lolu chungechunge lwabekwa kunqolobane. Uyacelwa ubuze umbuzo omusha uma udinga usizo.

Removing GMAIL account

  • 9 uphendule
  • 1 inale nkinga
  • 1 view
  • Igcine ukuphendulwa ngu david

more options

Have removed Gmail account. Checked that both IMAP and SMTP servers are removed. No calendars associated. Have restarted TB and PC as well. Still getting the "sign in to Google account" pop-up window for the deleted account, which is driving me NUTS.

TB 91.11.0 (64-bit) on Win 11.

Any help much appreciated.

Have removed Gmail account. Checked that both IMAP and SMTP servers are removed. No calendars associated. Have restarted TB and PC as well. Still getting the "sign in to Google account" pop-up window for the deleted account, which is driving me NUTS. TB 91.11.0 (64-bit) on Win 11. Any help much appreciated.

Isisombululo esikhethiwe

Okay, a little tricky, but we're desperate, right? - exit TB - in File explorer, locate profile and make a backup copy of prefs.js - open prefs.js in a text editor, such as notepad - see if you can locate the account. there may be several lines. delete each, but leave no blank lines. be careful. - save prefs.js and start tb.

if there are problems, just exit and replace with the backup copy. And this is just a wild guess.

Funda le mpendulo ngokuhambisana nalesi sihloko 👍 1

All Replies (9)

more options

If you had multiple accounts, the issue may be that there is still an outgoing SMTP server.

more options

Only one gmail account installed and as noted I made sure to remove the SMTP server also

more options

My only other thought would be, via File Explorer, to view your profile and the Imapmail folder to see if there are remnants of the deleted account.

more options

thanks David, good idea, wouldn't have thunk of that myself.

Found %APPDATA%\Thunderbird\Profiles\ and under one of the listed profiles the \ImapMail\ folder, which contained imap.gmail.com.msf file. Have deleted this file. It has not solved the issue unfortunately. I searched the entire ....\Thunderbird\ folder tree for files named gmail and found no more. Still getting the pop-up when thunderbird starts.

more options

Suggestion: perhaps there is something still in the cache .

Exit Thunderbird - this is important.

  • In windows search type: %Appdata%
  • Select the %Appdata% file folder
  • Make sure to select the 'Local' option - do NOT select the 'Roaming' option as that contains your profile data.
  • Then select 'Thunderbird'
  • select 'Profiles'
  • You should now see the 'profile name' folder .
  • Either delete that folder or delete it's contents.

When you restart Thunderbird windows will auto create the cache files.

more options

Thanks for the suggestion TH followed your instructions, exited TB, deleted the folder entirely. Rebooted machine just in case and restarted TB - same effing popup. Head scratcher. I would really like to be rid of it but equally would really NOT like to reinstall TB and have to redo all my settings and whatnot.

more options

Isisombululo Esikhethiwe

Okay, a little tricky, but we're desperate, right? - exit TB - in File explorer, locate profile and make a backup copy of prefs.js - open prefs.js in a text editor, such as notepad - see if you can locate the account. there may be several lines. delete each, but leave no blank lines. be careful. - save prefs.js and start tb.

if there are problems, just exit and replace with the backup copy. And this is just a wild guess.

more options

Hi David! Thanks for your perseverance! Ok so, I think that was a result! Tracked down prefs.js in %APPDATA% and found the following: a. the folder for some bizarre reason contained 13 copies of prefs.js (named prefs-1.js through prefs-13.js).

I deleted all of those. Then went to editing prefs.js and sure enough;

b.the file still contained references for both gmail calendar (which I never set up or used) for the old account AS WELL as all settings and data for the gmail SMTP server (which was deleted when looking in TB settings).

So deleted all those lines, kept the backup prefs files and restarted TB. Nothing broken so far and no Google pop-up! AWESOME!! Thanks a lot once more!!

Okulungisiwe ngu castoak

more options

Great! Desperate moves are sometimes the best.  :)