Thunderbird sometimes re-downloads old messages

I must leave a copy of the messages on the server inbox, so I cannot delete them from the provider.

Must is a pretty strong word. Why?

Thunderbird starts to download all the messages as if they hadn't been never downloaded.

Possible reasons: popstate.dat file corrupted, popstate.dat file deleted, uid roll (where the server changes the unique email identifier)

How does Thunderbird keep track of already downloaded messages?

I suspect something like CCleaner is deleting your popstate.dat file https://stackoverflow.com/questions/318673/where-does-thunderbird-store-the-uid-of-the-last-message-downloaded-via-pop file

Someone suggests to move the messages from the Inbox to an another folder but unfortunately the tools provided make this operation very time wasting.

Hitting an A key to archive an email takes almost no time :) https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/archived-messages

wsmwk

Posted 2018-11-14T07:35:52.233

Reputation: 180

Thanks for your answer.1)must because multiple workstations uses the same account and the customer wants to leave a copy always online. 2)I don't think an UID roll (other workstations would have been affected as well) but probably the popstate.dat got corrupted. Thank you for the hints! Any way to hack the popstate.dat or tell thunderbird please stop download email dated before a particular date? Bye – gipinani – 2018-11-16T18:44:15.597

In most cases where multiple people must access an account, imap is a better model then pop. Further, keeping all messages online is not a great practice for pop accounts. – wsmwk – 2018-11-19T02:02:32.003

Thunderbird sometimes re-downloads old messages

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