r/Thunderbird

New to Thunderbird. I've gone through all the menus. Preferences, appearance etc.

According to the help site I have to go through all kinds of hoops to change the date format from yank to EU.

That is something that should just be in the settings!

Exceptionally slow to download new messages the last couple weeks. Hangs on "connect to imap.gmail.com". Tried all the usual fixes, compact folders, repair folders, windows defender exceptions, troubleshoot mode, even deleted the program and profiles and started with a completely new setup, no changes at all (end up subsequently restoring old profiles). Also getting a bunch of "failed to connect" notifications. It does EVENTUALLY download new messages, and eventually updates folders if I leave the program sit on that folder for a while, but the "get messages" button is essentially useless presently. I've had similar issues in the past occasionally, but one of the standard fixes always made it go away.

I'm on Windows 10 ESU 64 bit. This has me toying with the idea of finally updating to 11 if it would be guaranteed to fix my problem, otherwise I'm perfectly content to stay on 10 for the next year (or longer if ESU gets extended again).

The update last week broke my custom notification sound that I've been using for the last 20 years, clicking "play" after selecting the .wav file results in silence, if I select default system sound that works fine (although that's the same "something is wrong" sound for my PC, so it's a bit unnerving.

For some reason Thunderbird won't download one of my email accounts. It will download the other 2 but won't download my primary. I get the dialogue that there are 59 to download then it just stops and does nothing. Yet it will download the other 2 email addresses. The email address is working on my cellphone. Its just my desk top

Hey all, stuck on this and hoping someone's hit it before.

**Setup:**

* Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy) * Thunderbird 140.7.1esr, installed via native `apt` (not Snap) — `/usr/bin/thunderbird` * Internet is fine — `ping` [`8.8.8.8`](http://8.8.8.8), `ping` [`google.com`](http://google.com), and `curl -v` [`https://accounts.google.com\`\](https://accounts.google.com) / `curl -v` [`https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token\`\](https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token) all connect and respond normally * `ufw` is inactive, so it's not a local firewall issue

**What's happening:**

I go through Account Setup, enter my name + Gmail address, leave the password blank (since Gmail requires OAuth2 now). Thunderbird correctly auto-detects the config:

* Incoming: [`imap.gmail.com`](http://imap.gmail.com), IMAP, SSL/TLS * Outgoing: [`smtp.gmail.com`](http://smtp.gmail.com), SMTP, SSL/TLS

I click **Done**, and instantly get:

>

**The weird part:** no Google sign-in window ever opens. Not embedded in Thunderbird, not as a separate popup, not even for a split second. I checked with `wmctrl -l` right when it fails — no hidden/background window is spawned at all. Thunderbird's own Error Console (`Ctrl+Shift+J`) shows zero JS errors during the attempt.

**Ruled out so far:**

* Firewall (ufw inactive) * Network/DNS reachability to Google's OAuth endpoints (confirmed working via curl) * Hidden/off-screen popup window (confirmed via wmctrl) * JS crash or exception in Thunderbird itself

**My leading theory:** autoconfig might be silently picking "Normal Password" as the auth method instead of "OAuth2" for this account — which would explain an instant rejection with a blank password field and zero OAuth popup, since it'd never be attempting OAuth in the first place. Haven't confirmed this yet by checking Server Settings → Authentication method manually.

**Haven't tried yet:**

* Forcing "OAuth2" explicitly via *Configure manually* (both incoming and outgoing) instead of trusting autoconfig * Testing with a completely fresh profile (`thunderbird -P`) to rule out local profile corruption

Has anyone run into this exact "no popup at all" failure mode before? Trying to figure out if this is a known autoconfig bug or something specific to my setup before I go nuking my profile.Title: Gmail OAuth2 login fails instantly in Thunderbird — no popup ever appears (Ubuntu 22.04)
Hey all, stuck on this and hoping someone's hit it before.
Setup:
Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy)
Thunderbird 140.7.1esr, installed via native apt (not Snap) — /usr/bin/thunderbird
Internet is fine — ping 8.8.8.8, ping google.com, and curl -v https://accounts.google.com / curl -v https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token all connect and respond normally
ufw is inactive, so it's not a local firewall issue
What's happening:
I go through Account Setup, enter my name + Gmail address, leave the password blank (since Gmail requires OAuth2 now). Thunderbird correctly auto-detects the config:
Incoming: [imap.gmail.com](http://imap.gmail.com), IMAP, SSL/TLS
Outgoing: [smtp.gmail.com](http://smtp.gmail.com), SMTP, SSL/TLS

Hey all! Just looking for some advice from current Thunderbird users. I bought into the Thundermail service (mostly to support the org / project, I don't really need another mail service) and as part of that started using Thunderbird again as my daily mail client for the first time in multiple decades.

I have many email accounts (mostly gmail-based, but also O365 and Proton in addition to Thundermail) and I'm on the verge of going back individual webmail views for them mostly because the friction is so high for finding things in threads and calendaring in Thunderbird. Does anyone have a set of config options that made the threading... smoother? More consistent? I'm really struggling to keep conversations together, and when I need to refer to previous messages it can be a real project to find them. I've actually picked up a habit of finding messages on my phone when I need to do that because it works better. I've done a bunch of searching for suggestions, but the options I've tried haven't made a material difference.

Edit: marking "solved". The problem will exist until a major rewrite lands, but I got some direction that should help, but it seems unlikely there will be much more to add.

Thunderbird has been getting very slow as of late. Emails take a long time to show up and take even longer to actually load. I don't know how to fix this but it's making it very hard to use the client.

I do not have addons of any kind, it used to sync to my email just fine and load everything lightning fast. Someone please give me an explanation I'm going nuts over here.

PS. It may just be a coincidence but after viewing the mail in the actual mail app on my phone, it loaded just fine on thunderbird. I don't know if this is of importance.

I want to have a folder at the top of my Thunderbird setup that collates Unread Mail from all 36 email addresses I have listed. Is that possible?

Wondering if both of these work well together or other combinations are better and stable. Using thunderbird for private/work and client data is confidential so absolutely cannot leave my laptop. Hope for tips and tricks before I start the process. Cheers.

My laptop specs is modest - Win11 Pro, 32GB memory, 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-11390H @ 3.40GHz, Intel Iris Xe Graphics, 700GB free local disk.

After updating, I started getting a series of authentication failures. Even went as far as removing my Gmail account and trying to reinstall it, but still getting issued

Running Thunderbird 153.0.2 on Fedora 44 KDE Plasma edition

I just learned today of the 15 year-old bug in Thunderbird (bug submitted using Windows Vista!!) where it's performing a spell-check on the forwarded or replied content and not just the body you typed in the forward or reply which is expected behavior. It's so annoying I just have to disable it and use the inline checking only. Not a problem.

That's when I realized Thunderbird doesn't check for duplicate words. As in, if I'm typing and I accidentally type type a word twice (yeah, I'm getting old), it simply sees them as spelled correctly and moves on. Does anyone know if there is an option anywhere to enable this? Searching around didn't turn anything up either way. Maybe I need to install a grammar checker add-on?

Thank you in advance!

So the title/subject of the emails is all in Russian script. Obviously dodgy. The emails they're from are all - (10 to 20 random english letters and numbers) @ gmail.com

She has friends with gmail accounts so blocking the domain is not an option. There's no .ru suffix either.

She's currently tagging them all as spam/blocking and deleting. But this hasn't reduced or deterred them and it's just a daily chore.

I did a google search, but it all looked too complicated for anything she could set up.

Any simple steps I can pass on? (I'm no longer a thunderbird user myself).

Thanks for any advice ✌️

Thunderbird updated itself to version 153.0.3esr. Our company's Python code that creates Thunderbird emails from the Thunderbird command line failed immediately after the upgrade. The code now generates empty emails, when in the past, thousands of emails have been properly generated.

Has the command line interface changed? If so, how can we get documentation on the changes?

One of the best things about Thunderbird has always been its extensions. They gave the community flexibility, customization, and features that made Thunderbird stand out from other mail clients.

But lately, many extensions are dying. Every major update seems to break compatibility, forcing developers to rewrite their add-ons again and again. Many smaller projects just don’t survive these transitions, and users are left without the tools they relied on.

I understand the need for progress, security, and modernization, but why does the development team keep breaking extension compatibility over and over? Couldn’t there be a more stable path forward that preserves the ecosystem instead of dismantling it piece by piece?

I’d really like to hear from others — do you feel the same way? And does anyone know if the Thunderbird team has explained why they keep pushing changes that make extensions unusable?

Hi everyone,

I'm running Thunderbird 153 on Ubuntu 24.04 and trying to access an on-premise Exchange server (fetching emails from owa.example.com).

Whenever I click on an email, a window pops up saying:

"Login to account John.Doe@example.com failed. Login to server msxmail.example.com with username John.Doe@example.com failed."

I am given the option to re-enter my password or click "Cancel" or "Retry". When I click "Retry" or "Cancel", it fetches and displays the message immediately without needing to re-type the password. The password itself is definitely correct.

Why does this error message appear every single time I click on a message, forcing me to click "Retry" continuously? Has anyone run into this issue or knows a fix?

Thanks in advance!

Every time I try to add an attachment with Send (Attach -> Filelink -> Thunderbird Send), I'm asked to "Finish setting up Send". And every time I click on "Continue Setup", another dialog pops up and disappears immediately. Thoughts are welcome. TIA

I used to access my Yahoo.fr email account via Thunderbird. I completely deleted the account—both from Yahoo and from Thunderbird itself. Yet, Thunderbird keeps trying to connect to Yahoo.fr and displays the attached window. Thanks for help.

https://preview.redd.it/2w3x4anzfyih1.png?width=965&format=png&auto=webp&s=abd733354a64cd51d746f464a95cb37367372d47

Decided to add a new email account. Add went fine, and Unified folders shows the various folders (Inbox, etc.), but Unified folders also shows the actual discrete accounts right after the Unified "Trash" folder, and it's done that for years.

However, the new account is not shown there. It's inbox is added the Unified Inbox, etc., but the actual account is not shown.

I tried Googling how to add the account, but all the links just tell how to add the accounts Inbox to the Unified Inbox, etc. That is working, but I need the actual account added to the Unified Pane (so I can turn off the "All Folders" view.

I am sure it is something simple, but I'd tried looks in the account settings, the Unified folder settings, etc., to no avail.

OS is Windows.

A.k.a. not Proton Mail (whose Bridge, which is necessary to connect with Thunderbird, requires a subscription)? I'd like to start diversifying away from Gmail.

EDIT: Okay, so it seems Tuta is the only other one that won't work. Thanks, guys and gals; keep 'em coming!