What to do if Thunderbird Not Downloading New Emails?

Written By Edwin Stark
Updated on December 9th, 2024

Summary: As you know Mozilla Thunderbird is an open-source application that enables users to handle their emails, news feeds, newsgroups, and chats in an effective manner. This application is a desktop-based email client that offers full control and ownership of email messages. Aside from this, Thunderbird offers multiple add-ons to customize and enhance the emailing experience. If you are searching for a complete and good solution for Thunderbird not downloading new emails. Then you are on the right track, In this technical article, we are going to tell how you can fix the Error with the manual methods and professional Sysinfo Thunderbird Backup Tool.

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Although owning several advantages, there are some problems that users encounter often while using this application. Henceforth, today in this technical writeup we are going to discuss one such common issue i.e., Thunderbird not downloading new mail. Hereabouts, we will reveal some simple and actually working techniques to fix Thunderbird not downloading new messages concern quickly and it is advised to understand the guidance correctly to evade any sort of data disaster.

Reasons Why Thunderbird Not Downloading Emails

Sometimes users encounter problems in reading, sending-receiving and downloading new emails due to some issues, in that case, they will get an alert.

The claimant has a large number of emails and the server is not accepting anymore.
Utilizing many Thunderbird account that have not been cleaned over the years.
As Thunderbird mailbox folders cannot increase the 4GB limit, so this may face an issue.
While the problem is with the Windows operating system and Thunderbird v3.1.
While some damage occurs in the Thunderbird MBOX files.
Your system’s Anti-virus or firewall has removed or isolated Thunderbird storage files.

So, by these above points, you have a concept behind this error. Now we find out the solution for resolving the error when Thunderbird not downloading email automatically.

How to Fix Thunderbird Not Downloading New Emails Issue?

If your Thunderbird application is holding corruption, fragmentation, or any other problem then, it is very obvious that it will not download your all emails. All right, it can occur in any circumstance so no trouble which protocol you are using POP or IMAP. Hence, you need to force Thunderbird to download all new messages, and the following are the guidelines for the same.

Case 1: If Your Thunderbird Account is IMAP

If you desire to save all new messages from your IMAP configured Thunderbird account, go with the below-mentioned steps and fix Thunderbird not downloading new messages problem:

Start Mozilla Thunderbird and click on Tools.
Choose Account Settings >> Synchronization & Storage category for IMAP account.
Allow Keep messages for this account on this computer option.
After that, hit the Advanced button to force Thunderbird to download all IMAP messages.
Next, check the Download option for the Inbox folder.

Note: You can also select the additional folders that you want available offline.

Finally, click on OK >> OK.

Case 2: Thunderbird Account is POP3

See, Global searching/ indexing is the global database that uses global-messages-db.sqlite as the search index. It contains a copy of all messages of the user’s Thunderbird account. It duplicates emails from the MBOX files generated by synchronization. Unusually this file becomes corrupt & as a result of which Thunderbird becomes unable to download all emails and Thunderbird not downloading new emails issue occurs. To resolve this issue:

Close Thunderbird application.
Look for global-messages-db.sqlite file in your Thunderbird profile.
After that delete the global-messages-db.sqlite file from your local machine to force Thunderbird to download all messages POP3.
Immediately, restart the Thunderbird, and the re-indexing process will begin automatically.

Note: The entire time taken by the application in re-indexing, relies on the number of emails. Few times it may take an extra minute to complete the indexing procedure.

As the re-indexing process is going on, users can use the Thunderbird however, it may respond slow at that time.
You can monitor the indexing status via the Tools >> Activity Manager.

Henceforth, the Mozilla Thunderbird will download all new email messages and synchronize them with your MBOX files. Therefore, this is how Thunderbird not downloading new emails issue can be fixed.

How to Download Thunderbird All Emails?

If your Thunderbird not downloading all emails then you can try a third-party utility to download thunderbird emails. One such wizard is Sysinfo Thunderbird Backup Tool. It is a reliable software for users to download Thunderbird mailbox items on the system. The tool can save or export mailbox data such as emails, drafts, Contacts, Attachments into different file formats & Email clients. It offers multiple features like Preview the files, save in the same folder, removes duplicate items, and many more. Furthermore, the Thunderbird backup tool can easily download or migrate Thunderbird items into PST, OST, AOL, Gmail, Yahoo mail, Office 365, and other file formats or email clients.

Main Features of Tool:

The tool can back up Thunderbird Account Data such as emails, drafts, attachments, contacts tasks, etc.
It downloads Thunderbird emails into PST, EML, PDF, OST, MBOX, and other file formats.
Offers a complete preview to the users of mailbox data and attachments.
Provide a Mail filter option to separate emails in a particular date range.
It removes the duplicate emails from the selected folders.
The utility is compatible with all Windows OS versions.

Know More: How to Migrate IMAP Email to New Server?

Steps to Download Thunderbird Mailbox:

Download, Install and Run the Sysinfo Thunderbird Email Backup Tool.

Check from the tree structure containing all the Thunderbird mailbox items.

Now from the left side of Thunderbird backup wizard. Choose the folders which you want to backup or migrate.

After that, you can also choose a single folder and view their content, subject, receive date, from, etc.

Here you can preview the data and attachments of a particular email. Click Next.

Here, select the file format or email client from the drop-down menu.

Select the following if required: Save in SameFolder, Remove Duplicate Mail, Migrate, or Backup Without Attachments.

Choose these features: Mail Filte, Custom Folder Name, and Naming Convention.
Now click on the convert button to start the migration of emails into the new EML files.

After that, wait for some time to end the backup Process.

In the end, you can download the final report using the Download Report option. Furthermore, again begin the process by clicking on the Convert Again.

Ending Line

Generally, Thunderbird reviews all email messages every time and downloads the new messages bit by bit. But, sometimes due to the disturbance in settings and server, it becomes unable to download the emails, or the email downloading process gets slow down. Therefore, this blog describes how to fix Thunderbird not downloading new emails issue quickly. Hereabouts, we have presented a few solutions according to account settings and users can opt for the technique accordingly to get rid of Thunderbird not downloading new messages issue.

About The Author:

Edwin Stark

Edwin Stark is a Technical Content Writer who specializes in writing about databases, e-mail recovery, and e-mail migration solutions. He loves researching and developing content that helps database administrators, organizations and novices to fix multiple problems.