SOLVED: Corrupt Index in Thunderbird Junk Folder
May 20th, 2009 | Published in Software | 14 Comments
I use Mozilla Thunderbird as my desktop email client. Maybe it is not the finest piece of software in the world, but it kind of works for me. Besides, throughout the years I have seen a good share of different email clients, and not all of them were pretty. In fact, some were so ugly I do not even want to mention them.
So, like I am saying, I am OK with Thunderbird. But there is one recurring problem with it that really pisses me off. Every once in a while after collecting new mail and getting it sorted, Thunderbird ends up being very confused about the contents of its Junk folder. You can delete all spam messages to clear the box, but a few items will still be there. I call them ghost junkies. Here is what it looks like:
People say the problem has to do with some internal index getting corrupt, and luckily enough, there is a way to fix it. Here is how you do it.
-
- Close Thunderbird.
- Go to the Local Foldersfolder. The full path will vary, but you will get the idea from this example:
C:\Documents and Settings\your-windows-name\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\er7ak551.default\Mail\Local Folders
.
- Locate and delete the files Junk and Junk.msf.
- Launch Thunderbird again.
After relaunching Thunderbird, those ugly ghost junkies should go away. As you could see, fixing this was not all that hard, but if you know of a more radical way to deal with the broken Junk index, please let me know.
Update: Problem solved!
Many thanks to reader notsofast! As it turns out, there is a much easier way to rebuild the index. You just right-click on the Junk folder and select Properties which will bring up the dialog:
Now click the Rebuild Index button and you are all set! Hooray!
June 1st, 2009 at 2:37 pm (#)
I tried Thunderbird for quite a while and I liked it. Then one day I decided to use it to pull mail from more than one e-mail account and it has never worked since. Its a shame because I thought it was quick, and fairly intuitive to use but I have never been able to make it work with more than one e-mail address.
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:41 pm (#)
I’ve been using TBird to pull emails from several domain email accounts, plus one ISP, Yahoo, Bellnet, Rogers.Crackberry, and a hotmail account.
Been using TBird to pull emails from multiple accounts like this on 4 PCs since Oct 2004.
Never had a problem, except in the early years when upgrading… it was dicey back then.
Eitherway never reinenstalled and may be putting it on 2 more PCs soon.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:28 pm (#)
Great post! Just wanted to let you know you have a new subscriber- me!
June 7th, 2009 at 5:20 pm (#)
I’m a big fan of just using Google Mail’s web UI. Its not as full featured as an app but it never goes wrong and I can get to it from anywhere. Rock solid dependability. With the new Labs features its getting some neat stuff too.
June 12th, 2009 at 11:23 am (#)
I have been using Thunderbird happily for a while, pulling from multiple IMAP accounts, and saving files locally. My indexes get corrupted regularly. The most noticeable symptom appears as duplicate message headers. Rebuilding the index (select Inbox -> Properties -> Rebuild Index) clears it up. It is not a good situation, though, because what appears to be a duplicated email is actually another message, and I sometimes accidentally delete the wrong message, thinking it is a duplicate of something else.
The other weird corruption that occurs is when using “Save View as a Folder…”. The rules get corrupted (they change to the rules from another folder), and occasionally they get turned into an actual (empty) folder.
Makes me very uncomfortable. But I have not seen others complaining about these same symptoms, so it makes me wonder if it’s something on my end. I’m running Thunderbird 2.0.0.21 on Windows Vista.
June 13th, 2009 at 7:12 am (#)
I have been using Thunderbird 2 and its simply amazing. It includes many new features to help you manage your inbox. With Thunderbird 2, it’s easier to prioritize and find your important email with tags and the new find bar helps you find content within your email faster.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:33 pm (#)
I have just downloaded my e-mails and 6 were automatically consigned to my Junk Folder. I found that I was unable to open the Junk Folder to check the e-mails to confirm their deletion. Thunderbird goes into a “Not Responding” situation with the hourglass cursor continuously showing and the only thing I can do is to close it from Task Manager after one or two attempts as it doesn’t respond to any key presses. On a restart of Thunderbird the Junk Folder still shows 6 unread e-mails and again I can’t open the folder.
Any solution?
June 25th, 2009 at 6:20 pm (#)
I have had similar problems with thunderbird where the emails get corrupted – the subject and the content don’t match!
so valid emails end up with spam emails content and vice versa
I use POP3 witha pop3 account and IMAP with gmail
August 10th, 2009 at 1:01 pm (#)
I’ve been suffering from this problem for sometime. Thank you for giving my sanity back!
I’ve looked for an answer several times, but didn’t find one until now.
Cheers.
Zach
September 5th, 2009 at 2:59 am (#)
Thanks for the post. I have also been suffering from this problem for sometime. Hope this post solves my problem. Keep posting.
October 14th, 2009 at 6:30 pm (#)
I prefer to use my non complicated and fairly user friendly gmail account. I have considered switching over to Thunderbird because many of my friends use it, but they have also reported problems similar to yours and therefore, I think i’ll stick with gmail 🙂
November 16th, 2009 at 10:07 pm (#)
Hey, this post is indeed the perfect solution for my problem. I switched to Thunderbird from Outlook a couple of months ago. my junk mail is totally empty but but then the numbers were always there. thanks for sharing this tutorial! i really appreciate it.
November 18th, 2009 at 2:50 am (#)
Thanks for the article. I am using Thunderbird and i am suffering from this problem. Your article helped me thanks a lot for sharing.
June 22nd, 2010 at 4:25 pm (#)
Does ANYONE know where some recent tutorials for setting up Thunderbird are? I have been trying to set it up since yesterday. I got it to work just fine with my gmail. But I want some email accounts with Host Gator to go there (web domain email addresses).
EVERY single tutorial has different screens. On Host Gator I have also found many conflicting resources. Absolutely horrible. Thunderbird doesn’t even have a thorough comprehensive tutorial. How did you all get this to work?
Thanks for any help!