email - How can I get Thunderbird to check subfolders on IMAP?

25
2014-03
  • Macha

    I have Thunderbird set up to use my Gmail account through IMAP. All works well and good, except for one problem:

    I have a group of gmail mail filters set up to redirect mail into different labels based on what it's for. However, by default, it seems Thunderbird only checks the Inbox for new messages. Is there a way to get it to check the subfolders aswell?

    • Answers
  • BenA

    I do exactly the same.

    If you right click on a folder, then select properties, there is a check box that says "Check this folder for new messages". That's the one you want!

    Unfortunately I don't think there is any way to do this for all folders at once, you have to do them one by one.

  • slhck

    It can be done, similar to Thunderbird 2: Tools - Options - Advanced - Config Editor, then set mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new to true.

    In Thunderbird 8 the property is called mail.server.default.check_all_folders_for_new

    See also: Checking for new messages in other folders - Thunderbird - MozillaZine Knowledge Base

  • Matt

    Thunderbird 3 will automatically update/refresh individual IMAP folders when you switch to them (e.g. click on them). None of my "Check this folder for new messages" options are checked.

    You can update all folders at once by clicking File, Offline, Download/Sync Now... or File, Offline, Work Offline. The former option asks if you want to go offline following the sync. When you come back from Offline, the sync happens again.


    • Related Question

    Thunderbird 3 via GMail IMAP to Google Groups: sent items do not show up
  • Charles Roper

    I use Thunderbird 3 with my GMail account using IMAP. When I send messages via Thunderbird to Google Groups I am subscribed to, my own messages do no appear in threads. Looking at the same threads in the GMail UI and the Groups UI, my own messages show up just fine.

    Is there a way to get my own messages to show up in Thunderbird?


    • Related Answers
  • Phil P

    Gmail de-duplicates emails. When you send a mail, the copy which comes back in is found to match the copy you already have and ignored. This is why mail you send from your own address often just appears in Sent Mail.

    Sent Mail is still in the conversation, and should still have the References: headers to allow it to be threaded.

    I suspect that you're using Gmail filters to tag mails based on the list as they come in? So this works in Gmail because when you look at a label in Gmail, you select conversations (threads) rather than messages, so you get all the replies. The mail you sent won't itself have the label though, so on a strictly message-based interface such as IMAP that mail won't appear in the folder.

    If you're using listid: to filter mail in Gmail, try using list: instead. The list: operator handles the To: header, as well as List-Id:, so is better than the listid: operator (which is just too low-level). Use <...> around the list-id to change the tokenisation to be more appropriate (and the '@' is a magic @ here, which will match the '.' form in the List-Id: header).

  • Charles Roper

    I have just solved this problem using the Send Filter add-on for Thunderbird.

    Note, a TB3 compatible version is available.

    Send filtering is also supposedly going to be available natively in TB3, but as of the 3.0 release, I can't see that it's in there.

    With this add-on installed I am simply creating filters on the To: field for the relevant lists and setting the action to copy the message to the relevant folder. Works just fine.