Two sent folders for each account

[T-buch]

Now when I'm going to reinstall my computer I just wanted to know if anyone knows how to get rid of my two "folders" in "sent mail" Please see the link to the foto

They are all Gmail accounts
FOTO: https://i.imgur.com/ekw7apT.jpg

[tanstaafl]

The gmail smtp server automatically saves a copy of the sent message in your gmail's sent mail folder. You can't disable that or change the folder it uses. So most people uncheck the setting in Thunderbirds "copies& folders" settings to avoid having a second sent folder (with a different name) created by Thunderbird.

You can use another accounts smtp server with your gmail account. That would allow you to have no sent folder at all due to unchecking "place a copy in" in "copies & folders" and not using a smtp server that automatically saves a copy.

[mgagnonlv]

I never had the problem of "double folders" with Gmail accounts. I also do not use the "Unified folders" view.
Could you remove the Unified view just to make sure you really have two entries for each Gmail account?

Here is one hint: I suspect that your Gmail page is in German. I once had a similar problem with French. Either your account dates back from the time Thunderbird had a problem with your language or you changed your language in any of the Google apps, then opened Gmail's web interface, then Gmail changes all folder names and Thunderbird creates new folders with new names.
For example, in French (Canada), we have "Courrier entrant", "Messages envoyés" and "Pourriel", while in US English they have (from memory) "Inbox", "Sent messages" and "Junk". When I switched from English to French, Thunderbird kept the Sent Messages folder and created a new one called "Messages envoyés". Same behaviour for the Junk folder (for whatever reason, the Inbox folder seems to follow the translation).


What should you do?

— Check the web interface to see how your folders are actually called. Also send an email from the web interface to see which folder is actually used to store your sent mails (is it "Sent" or "Sentde mails"?).

— In Thunderbird, check that the test message you sent a few minutes ago indeed appears in that folder.
— Then right-click on the account name, select "Copies and Folders" ("Copies et dossiers" in French),
then select "When you send a message, place automatically a copy of the message in "Other folder"...
then select "the_same_folder_as_above" (ex.: "Sentde mails on my_account@gmail.com")

— The other folder (i.e. Sent) is not useful anymore and may contain either old messages from the time you used a different language... or was used by Thunderbird locally.
Still in Thunderbird, MOVE all sent messages from one folder to the other (ex.: if "Sent" isn't useful anymore, select all messages from "Sent" and move them to "Sentde mails".
— Wait enough time to make sure all attachments, etc. are all moved from one account to another (why not overnight?). Then delete the now empty folder.
— Quit and restart Thunderbird. You should now have only one folder for your sent mail.