How to make Thunderbird download new IMAP messages
One of the minor things I’ve noticed when I use Thunderbird on my IMAP accounts is that it doesn’t download IMAP messages until I click on them. Then I have to wait until I can see the message. I have heard that this is supposed to be fixed in Thunderbird 3, and I tried it but a lot of the extensions I need aren’t compatible with it.
Today I finally tried to search and find out more about the problem. Turns out I’m not alone — others have noticed that the setting to download message bodies for offline use doesn’t do what it’s supposed to.
Fortunately, there’s an extension for this. It’s called Sync On Arrival. So far, it’s working like a charm. The only thing I had to do was edit the install.rdf to increase the version number. It’s compatible with Thunderbird 2, even though it says it’s not.
Edit: see the comments for a way to do this with configuration alone, rather than an extension.
Ha, I’ve been having the same trouble. Thanks for posting this!
Tim McCormack
26 May 09 at 7:40 pm
Hi Baron,
You can also do this without an extension, by changing the “mail.server.default.autosync_offline_stores” setting to “true”. This is most likely what the extension you’ve downloaded does.
Cheers,
Nathan
Nathan de Vries
26 May 09 at 10:33 pm
Nathan, there’s no such preference in about:config in my Thunderbird. Is this setting for TB 3 only? The extension seems to have quite a bit of code in it.
Xaprb
26 May 09 at 10:56 pm
Ah, I shouldn’t have said “change”. You’ll need to create the setting yourself, as per the instructions here:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Offline_folders#AutoSync
Nathan de Vries
26 May 09 at 11:04 pm
Aha, I see. Well, I’ve done that, and disabled the extension, so we’ll see if this does the trick. If I can do it without an extension, that’s great.
The meaning of use_status_for_biff took me a while to understand; I found this thread helpful: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=610355
Xaprb
26 May 09 at 11:21 pm
The configuration setting does work fine without the extension.
Xaprb
27 May 09 at 8:10 am
for me at least, with mail.server.default.autosync_offline_stores enabled, just opening the ‘junk’ folder to check subject lines started downloading 1000s of spam email bodies…
not so good when out-of-office on slow wireless cxn
Alan Rimm-Kaufman
27 May 09 at 3:35 pm
Yeah, the extension and the setting don’t have the same behavior. The extension respects per-folder settings.
Xaprb
27 May 09 at 5:17 pm