Extremely slow download of eMail messages

[Montana Bob]

Running version 68.7.0 of TB and have discovered that the download of eMail messages is extremely slow. Downloading one message with a 2 Mb file requires nearly five minutes to come down. No problem with webpages on Firefox, so it's not the connection.

I am on Win 7 64 bit.

Any ideas?

Montana Bob

[DanRaisch]

How is the account set up, as POP or IMAP?
In Thunderbird the menu path is Tools->Account Settings->Server Settings->Server Type at the top right of the dialogue.

[Montana Bob]

How is the account set up, as POP or IMAP?
In Thunderbird the menu path is Tools->Account Settings->Server Settings->Server Type at the top right of the dialogue.

Thanks for the response, Dan. It's setup as a POP Mail Server

Montana Bob

[DanRaisch]

And how many messages are now in the Inbox folder?

[Montana Bob]

About twenty-five, Dan.

Montana Bob

[DanRaisch]

First, backup your Profile ( http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup ) Note that I do not recommend the use of MozBackup.

Create a new sub-folder under Local Folders. Move all of the messages currently in your Inbox to that new subfolder.

Confirm that you have made the recommended backup of your Profile.

Close Thunderbird and navigate to the \Mail sub-folder of your Profile folder. Delete both the file Inbox.msf and the file Inbox with no extension.

Restart Thunderbird and you should find a new, empty Inbox folder in place. Copy any messages you MUST have in your Inbox from the sub-folder created above to the Inbox. Compact the Inbox after those messages are copied in.

The "Real Fix" entry in this article -- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders#Real_fix also describes this process.

[Montana Bob]

Dan,

Sorry that I am late in posting an update to my slow eMail download issue.

I think that I discovered the cause and I feel kind of stupid as I should have known the problem. In this case it was one of those "out of sight, out of mind" situations.

After posting the Inbox file amount, it hit me that I am downloading my eMail messages automatically on my wife's laptop. (I have since stopped that.) I accessed that Inbox and discovered that--this is not a typo!--nearly 10,000, yes, ten thousand, messages in the Inbox on her computer. There were so many messages that deleting them from the Inbox, followed by clearing the Trash folder and then compacting the files required about forty-five minutes! Compacting released over a gig and a half of drive space!

Anyway, problem solved! eMail message download time has improved immensely on both of our computers and the general performance of her computer has also improved. Sorry for taking up your valuable time!

Montana Bob

[DanRaisch]

Not a problem, Bob. Very glad to hear you solved the problem.