Blue Flower

Thunderbird

This is the Thunderbird category.  Articles and subcategories related to the Thunderbird email software are listed here.  Look below for list of articles and possible subcategories that get added over time.

How to make an email be the default on Thunderbird

Intro.

This article is good for people who have multiple email accounts/boxes being checking on their Thunderbird email software, and want one of them to be the default email account chosen when a new email composing is started or if an automated email response is sent. 

First, a topic and suggestion outside the focus of this topic, but related.  For the reason that the email software can send automatic a responses, confirmations, and receipts without you knowing, my suggestion is to make the default be an empty account (a nonexistent email box with fake email servers indicated).  This way an automated outgoing response does not get sent and you see it first and can choose to either modify it, or have it sent with the proper From address, or delete it, or move it to some other folder, or be ignored.

Self note and statistical info for others.  It took 2 hours or more to produce this article.
Please note that I do not get paid to write these articles.

Steps.

Method 1.

  1. Open Thunderbird.
  2. Go to Tools from top menu.

    Thunderbird Tools from menu with Account Settings selected

  3. Select Account Settings.
  4. On the new window that shows, on the left pane, select the email account that you want to be the default.
  5. Look below the left pane, and click on the pull-down menu button of Account Actions.

    Thunderbird Account Settings Account Actions button with Set As Default selected.

  6. Select "Set as Default".
  7. Click OK button

 

Method 2.

  1. Open Thunderbird.
  2. On the left pane, select the Email account you want to be chosen by default when you start a new email.
  3. Select Settings.

    Right-mouse-button selection on Email account with Settings selected

  4. On the new window that shows, on it's left pane, the account you chose before should be highlighted, and if not, then select the email account that you want to be the default.
  5. Look below the left pane, and click on the pull-down menu button of Account Actions.

    Thunderbird Account Settings Account Actions button with Set As Default selected.

  6. Select "Set as Default".
  7. Click OK button

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How To Resolve Thunderbird Left Pane Window Showing Empty (Blank) Or Not Showing

Article based on Thunderbird version 24.6.0 and some later. 

Recently, I had the left window pane in Thunderbird show blank (empty).

Please know I do not get paid to write these articles.

Try the following.

Method 1

  1. Simply Close Thunderbird, and make sure it is completely closed in the background tasks.   On a windows OS, you can push Ctrl-Alt-Del buttons together and bring up a Windows Task Manager and the list of Processes should not be showing Thunderbird.
  2. Once closed, then start Thunderbird again, and you may find that the pane is showing the folder structure again. 

I have found that this may need to be done a few times in some cases before it resolves itself.

 

Method 2

  1. Close Thunderbird.
  2. Go to your Thunderbird profile folder.  Probably some path like ...\Thunderbird\Profiles\onkxhvp7.
  3. Rename the files session.json and foldertree.json to session.json-RENAMED and foldertree.json-RENAMED.  These files will get recreated by Thunderbird.
  4. Start Thunderbird to see if folders in Left Window Pane show.

 

By some chance if you are not even seeing the Left Pane (Left Window Pane) at all, then you may have accidentally minimized (collapsed) the Left Pane window and the following would only apply to you.

 

Method 3

  1. Move your mouse to the far left side of the Thunderbird software window until you see a double arrow, ↔.
  2. Once you see the double arrow, keep your mouse there and left mouse button click and hold the button down as you drag the vertical bar to the right to reveal the left pane contents.

 

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Thunderbird Cannot Use The Profile Because It Is In Use

If you are getting an error message from Thunderbird that looks something like this

Thunderbird Profile In Use message window.

And, restarting your computer has not helped, then, this solution may help you.

Remove the lock file in the profile folder

The Thunderbird software may may have shut down (terminated) incorrectly (abnormally/crashed), and thus leaving the lock file in place. To fix this, do the following.

  1. Locate your profiles folder.
    On a windows system, it is most likely located somewhere like this: C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles
    For example: C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\rvq9il7z

  2. Delete the Lock File.

    1. On a Windows computer, remove (delete) "parent.lock"

    2. On a Linux based computer, remove (delete) "lock" and ".parentlock"

    3. On a Max OS X computer, remove (delete) ".parentlock"

 

NOTES:

Windows: If you find that you are not able to delete the "parent.lock" file and receive the error, "Cannot delete parent: The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable", restart the computer and run the system error-checking tool (such as Chkdsk in Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 or ScanDisk on Windows 98/ME).

Mac OS X: You will need to make use of a free utility like Onyx, or Maintain to make visible (show) the file of ".parentlock". This is an empty file, and just signals that the profile is in use, even if it is not.  Deleting it will unlock the profile.

 


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Access or Enable Thunderbird Profile Manager

Please note that I do not get paid to write these articles. Hopefully, you find them useful.

Example Of Who Needs This

If you use Thunderbird with multiple profiles, and suddenly the Thunderbird Profile Manager no longer comes up and you go straight into a Profile, or you simply want to be able to make multiple profiles and need access to the Thunderbird Profile Manager, then this article is for you.

 

Intro and Scenario

On a computer station, suddenly for an unknown reason, the Profile Manager stopped coming up, and every time Thunderbird was started, it would start in one of the profiles, which was last used.  There were no settings that I could see in the Tools or options of Thunderbird to cause it to restart with the Profile Manager displayed first.

So, this is how you make the Thunderbird Profile Manger show upon start of Thunderbird.  If you do not know this simple line, then things are a huge headache and stressful and it could involve lots of searching and reading on the Internet to figure it out.

Please note that I do not get paid for these articles and they are done with best effort.

 

To Start Thunderbird Profile Manager

Execute the command thunderbird.exe -p.  This should work on any computer operating system (Windows, Linux, Max, etc.)

In a Windows operating system, you would execute the command line using the Run selection or the Run field.
For example on a Window XP go to Start >> Run >> type "thunderbird.exe -p" >> click OK:

When you run the above command, something like the following should show.  You need to UNCHECK the checkbox that says "Don't ask at startup" to have Thunderbird Profile Manager show automatically when you start Thunderbird without having to execute the command of thunderbird.exe -p.



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