Thunderbird re-downloading all IMAP

[factotumindustries]

Windows 10 Home
Thunderbird 48 (?)

Opened TB today and it's re-downloading all of my 7Gb IMAP mail (yes, that's a bit large I know). The server is a HostGator one.

Upgraded to 52.3 (32) today and problem is unchanged.

Only other things I have done recently are :

* Moved profile folder from C to D drive and used a symlink (this has been working fine for weeks do just including this for completeness)
* Did a backup of my system with Cobian (again, unlikely)

Pointers for what to try appreciated

[tanstaafl]

The search index file used by global search can get corrupted. When that happens it may fetch all of the messages repeatably. The workaround is to use help -> troubleshooting information -> open folder to open windows explorer at your profile, exit Thunderbird, and then delete global-messages-db.* . When you restart Thunderbird it will download them one more time, but then hopefully stop.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Files_and_fol ... hunderbird

You could try disabling global search/indexing in tools -> options -> advanced -> general beforehand, and see if the downloading stops. If it does then re-enable it, and delete the files as described above.

Take a quick look at http://kb.mozillazine.org/Minimize_the_ ... _a_profile . Another solution would be to disable offline folders and global search, if you are comfortable using the "quick filter bar" to search in the current folder (rather than do global searchs). The offline folders (from the accounts synchronization & storage settings) are not used as a cache and are not a reliable backup, they're mainly to let you read messages while working offline.