Thunderbird Sucking Up Memory

[Jdogzz]

I've been a fan of Thunderbird for a long time, but with each passing version I find it more and more resource intensive (650 to 700 MB of RAM average for 2 mail accounts). The last nightly release, version 14, finally made me break down to find a solution when I saw that I couldn't open the "All Mail" folder for my Gmail account (it would hit 88% of my CPU in my resource monitor). Can anyone help me optimize Thunderbird? I regularly compact my folders, but that's about all I could turn up for improving its performance. I know that another alternative is to turn off the indexing, but I would like to do that as a last resort since I do a lot of searching and turning it off would become a bigger inconvenience than the memory problem.

I also notice that my configuration folder is 8 GB in size while the combined size of my accounts is almost 4 GB in Gmail, so is there a way to purge unnecessary caches and files to reduce the size and start fresh without redownloading all my emails?

[smsmith]

If you are trying to troubleshoot a nightly build problem, this is more appropriate to the builds forum, so I am going to move this there until you confirm you are also having this problem with the last official release version.

I have seen reports recently that the Test Pilot add-on might be causing trouble. If you have that add-on, try disabling it and see if that helps in any way.

If you have any plugins enabled (plugins, not extensions), try disabling any you won't actually be using, which would be most of them.

[wsmwk]

you want to follow the advice given in https://support.mozillamessaging.com/en ... -and-Gmail about the "All Mail folder.

Even with that adjustment and a reduction of say 100MB-200MB memory, down from 650MB, you are using a lot of memory. If you are not down below 350MB you should look at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Te ... e_Problems

[Jdogzz]

I figured out that one of the extensions, Google Contacts, had a memory leak and was kicking it up that high. I switched it out with an alternative and now it's back down to a reasonable 300 MB roughly. But I would like to shrink that down a little more.
I have disabled all plugins (not extensions) and that seems to have helped a little.
I don't have the Test Pilot add on installed (at least not that I'm aware of. It's not in my extension list).
Concerning the All Mail folder, I am interested in the concept of unsubscribing from it in Gmail, but wouldn't that cause it to not list any of the messages I've archived when I do a search?

[smsmith]

Concerning the All Mail folder, I am interested in the concept of unsubscribing from it in Gmail, but wouldn't that cause it to not list any of the messages I've archived when I do a search?

Correct.

[wsmwk]

Concerning the All Mail folder, I am interested in the concept of unsubscribing from it in Gmail, but wouldn't that cause it to not list any of the messages I've archived when I do a search?

Correct.

An alternative to unsub, is to set thunderbird to not *sync* the messages for that folder. So that only the message headers are loaded in thunderbird

[juzcat]

Hi Jdogzz
Regarding your post
I figured out that one of the extensions, Google Contacts, had a memory leak and was kicking it up that high. I switched it out with an alternative and now it's back down to a reasonable 300 MB roughly. But I would like to shrink that down a little more.
I have disabled all plugins (not extensions) and that seems to have helped a little.
I don't have the Test Pilot add on installed (at least not that I'm aware of. It's not in my extension list).
Concerning the All Mail folder, I am interested in the concept of unsubscribing from it in Gmail, but wouldn't that cause it to not list any of the messages I've archived when I do a search?

What did you replace Google Contacts with?
thanks

[Jdogzz]

Hi Jdogzz
Regarding your post
I figured out that one of the extensions, Google Contacts, had a memory leak and was kicking it up that high. I switched it out with an alternative and now it's back down to a reasonable 300 MB roughly. But I would like to shrink that down a little more.
I have disabled all plugins (not extensions) and that seems to have helped a little.
I don't have the Test Pilot add on installed (at least not that I'm aware of. It's not in my extension list).
Concerning the All Mail folder, I am interested in the concept of unsubscribing from it in Gmail, but wouldn't that cause it to not list any of the messages I've archived when I do a search?

What did you replace Google Contacts with?
thanks

I no longer sync my contacts since Gmail contacts are horribly broken thanks to Google Plus contacts being mixed in with them, but I believe I used this extension if you still want to know:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunde ... src=search

[jimzubemo]

I have been using Thunderbird for managing my 3-4 email accounts without having any issues for all these years. But just recently it just freezes and hang my entire computer. The memory usage reached exorbitant limits.

I have tried and tested by removing all my accounts, cleared all profiles data (C:\Users\<Windows user name>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\<Profile name>\ ) and added email account, smallest first.

I realized that the problem is occuring when I add my yahoo account. It is big as I have been using the account for a long time. So I limited email sync and download to 30days only, but still it is hanging.

I tried the same yahoo account on MS Outlook, at least does not hang the computer.
I am not sure what else to check.

I am logging this experience here: Please provide a suggestion that might have worked in your case
http://day2dayexps.blogspot.in/2013/06/ ... emory.html

[wsmwk]

I have been using Thunderbird for managing my 3-4 email accounts without having any issues for all these years. But just recently it just freezes and hang my entire computer. The memory usage reached exorbitant limits.

I have tried and tested by removing all my accounts, cleared all profiles data (C:\Users\<Windows user name>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\<Profile name>\ ) and added email account, smallest first.

I realized that the problem is occuring when I add my yahoo account. It is big as I have been using the account for a long time. So I limited email sync and download to 30days only, but still it is hanging.

I tried the same yahoo account on MS Outlook, at least does not hang the computer.
I am not sure what else to check.

I am logging this experience here: Please provide a suggestion that might have worked in your case
http://day2dayexps.blogspot.in/2013/06/ ... emory.html

What addons have been installed in the past?

How many address book contacts?

> The memory usage reached exorbitant limits.
Numbers and rate of change please instead of words :)

[jimzubemo]

Hi WSM,
Sorry for not being explicit with numbers there.
Most of the time I was not able to view the memory usage after thunderbird is started as the entire PC would freeze up, but times when I pulled up task manager before opening Thunderbird to check memory usage, i have seen anywhere between 9,00,000K - 13,00,000K on the higher side.

Anyways, after trials, i found this was because of a particular Yahoo email account I had. I switched from IMAP to POP and it is working well. I miss the customized folders in IMAP but the current setup serves my requirement, so continuing with that.

[wsmwk]

Hi WSM,
Sorry for not being explicit with numbers there.
Most of the time I was not able to view the memory usage after thunderbird is started as the entire PC would freeze up, but times when I pulled up task manager before opening Thunderbird to check memory usage, i have seen anywhere between 9,00,000K - 13,00,000K on the higher side.

That's an incredible amount. Do you mean 9GB? Or 900MB?

Anyways, after trials, i found this was because of a particular Yahoo email account I had. I switched from IMAP to POP and it is working well. I miss the customized folders in IMAP but the current setup serves my requirement, so continuing with that.

Probably a too large or bad imap mail folder. If you still have the imap definitions around you could try repairing the folder.

[aj4mq]

Could be another issue.. After having troubles trying to figure out an issue I've been chasing, I found the Activity Manager, a live indication of background services (that I've never heard of.)

Also, I run about 30 email accounts, and some of the folders are getting rather huge.. After deleting the global-messages-db.sqlite file, it started acting normally again...

Unfortunately, I think I am at the limit of sqlite, which based on a debug utility seems to explain the excessive memory usage during some sort of sorting process...

Might need to upgrade the sql database to MySQL somehow...

[wsmwk]

I am sad - I was hoping that jimzubemo was posting :(

Could be another issue.. After having troubles trying to figure out an issue I've been chasing, I found the Activity Manager, a live indication of background services (that I've never heard of.)

Also, I run about 30 email accounts, and some of the folders are getting rather huge.. After deleting the global-messages-db.sqlite file, it started acting normally again...

large folders can explain large memory.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Te ... e_Problems ask you to check the size of messages-db.sqlite

What was the size of messages-db.sqlite ?

Unfortunately, I think I am at the limit of sqlite, which based on a debug utility seems to explain the excessive memory usage during some sort of sorting process...

Might need to upgrade the sql database to MySQL somehow...

no. mysql cannot be used. nor will PortableApps help.

[abdelhameedm]

Hello all,

I disabled all add-ons and reset toolbars & controls and this fixed the memory problem.
Here is the steps I followed:
1- Open Thunderbird
2- Help -> Restart with add-ons disabled
3-
* Check the box "Disable all add-ons"
* Check the box "Reset toolbars and controls"
4- Make changes and restart.

Abdo