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Why Is Thunderbird Not Receiving Email? How to Fix This?

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Published By Karen Chard 
Rollins Duke
Approved By Rollins Duke
Published On July 8th, 2025
Reading Time 8 Min Read

Summary: This write-up is going to explain the true reasons behind Thunderbird not receiving email and how a user can fix these problems using different manual methods and professional tools. So, read the complete information first and then select the best method that suits your needs best.

Thus, Thunderbird is an open-source email client that is effortless to access by users on Windows, Linux, Mac, etc. It helps the organization systematically manage large emails. Organizations mostly use this tool to manage massive amounts of email, facilitating access to all messages, files, contacts, calendars, and other data.

While using Thunderbird, users face many glitches. Sometimes they encounter that Thunderbird not downloading emails and hence, users are not able to access new messages, messages, contacts, documents, etc. There might be different reasons why Thunderbird does not download new messages. Hence, to learn everything about Thunderbird not receiving email, read the complete guide.

What You Will Find Here? Hide
  1. Why Does Thunderbird Stop Downloading Messages or Emails?
  2. How Do I Fix “Thunderbird Not Receiving New Emails” Manually?
  3. Limitations of Manual Methods
  4. Automated Method to Fix Thunderbird Not Receiving New Emails
  5. How to Fix “Thunderbird Not Receiving New Emails”?
  6. Why Automated Tool Over Manual Methods?
  7. Final Comment

Reason Behind Thunderbird Not Receiving Email

  • Email Account Configuration: Verify your email account is signed in Thunderbird properly
  • Server Issue: See whether there is a problem with your email server. Usually, you may get this information by contacting your email provider’s support or by visiting their status website.
  • Antivirus: POP antivirus software is not blocking Thunderbird. You might need to add Thunderbird to the list of allowed programs.
  • IMAP/POP: If you are using IMAP, check that folders are synchronized. If you are using POP glitches, make sure that Thunderbird is set to download messages from the server.

More Possible Reasons: A strong reason behind Thunderbird not downloading emails can be an improper internet connection. Apart from this, also ensure that you have enough disk space on your computer and that your email storage is not full. If Thunderbird is not updated, the user will also not be able to receive email.

How to Resolve Thunderbird Not Downloading Emails Manually?

There are multiple methods and tricks to fix the issues when Thunderbird not receiving email. However, these tricks or methods don’t have a 100% guarantee to fix the error, which means the user has to test them and see which one fits the best according to their situation. So, have a quick look at the conventional solution to fix Thunderbird not downloading emails.

1: Verify Internet Connection

  1. First of all, check your internet connection to see if your device is connected to a strong internet source or not. If not, then do that immediately.
  2. Apart from this, the user can also troubleshoot the system internet connection by rebooting the device, turning on and off the airplane mode, or trying to connect it to another internet source as well.

2: Check Email Account Configuration

  1. Firstly, open Thunderbird on your system.
  2. Go to the “Tool” and click on the “Account Setting”.
  3. Select the email account you want to use from the left panel.
  4. Go to the “Server Settings” and enter your login details to log in to your account.
  5. Once done, save the changes, and you are one step closer to fixing the Thunderbird not receiving email issue.

3: Check the Firewall and Antivirus Settings

  1. Firstly, run the Firewall on your device and go to its settings.
  2. Make sure that Thunderbird is allowed through the firewall.
  3. After this, open your antivirus software.
  4. Temporarily disable it to see if it’s blocking Thunderbird.
  5. This solution can also help to fix the Thunderbird not receiving email issue. 

Read Also: Quick Guide to Fix Thunderbird Not Working With Office 365

4: Update Your Thunderbird

  1. Start Thunderbird on your system
  2. Go to “Help” and click on “Account Settings”.
  3. If an update is available, follow the prompts to install the updated Thunderbird.
  4. Updating the application can resolve the issue that Thunderbird not downloading emails.

5: Verify Email Rules and Filters

  1. Launch Thunderbird on your device.
  2. Select message filters under “Tools”.
  3. Verify whether any filters are directing incoming emails to different folders.
  4. Turn off or change filters as needed.
  5. Save the changes to swiftly resolve Thunderbird not downloading emails issue.

6: Fix the IMAP/POP3 Settings

For IMAP 

  1. Open the Thunderbird email client on your system.
  2. Go to “Tools” and click on “Account Settings”.
  3. Select “Synchronization & Storage” under your email account.
  4. Make sure that the option to synchronize messages is checked.

For POP3

  1. Start Thunderbird on your PC.
  2. Go to Tools and click on Account Settings.
  3. Select Server Settings under your email account.
  4. Ensure that the option to leave messages on the server is checked if you want to access them from multiple devices.
  5. This is another popular way to fix Thunderbird not receiving email. 

7: Create a New Profile

  1. Open Thunderbird and go to the “Settings” icon.
  2. Click “Account Settings” and then click “Add Mail Account”.
  3. Enter your login details correctly.
  4. Check the “Settings” and “Configure Manually”.
  5. Finally, click on “Finish” to create a new Thunderbird profile and fix Thunderbird not receiving email.

8: Repair Corrupted Thunderbird Folders

  1. Launch Thunderbird in your system.
  2. By right click on the “Folder” select the “Corrupted Folder”.
  3. Click on “Properties” from the context menu.
  4. Lastly, click on the “General Information” and click on the “Repair Folder” button.
  5. This will fix the minor corruption and lead to resolving the Thunderbird not downloading emails problem.

Limitations of Manual Methods

The solutions that we discussed above are useful and might resolve the issue of Thunderbird not receiving emails. However, they also come with some limitations, such as,

  • Complexity: The steps are more complex and time-consuming.
  • Data loss: If the methods are wrong, it might lead to the loss of important data, emails, etc.
  • Technical Expertise Required: This method requires technical expertise to follow the steps correctly.
  • Time-Consuming: These methods contain multiple steps that take a lot of time.

Note: If your Thunderbird is corrupted or you want to protect your important email from such issues, you can export your email from Thunderbird to another email client. And, for this, you can use the alternative solutions. It helps to export the Thunderbird profile data to another email client and also you can save the exported files in different file-saving formats. 

Automated Method to Fix Thunderbird Not Receiving Emails

To overcome the issues related to Thunderbird not downloading emails, users can use an automated solution that helps them solve this problem. And, for this, experts always use and recommend the RecoveryTools Thunderbird Migrator Wizard. The best thing is that users can download the free trial edition of this tool to overcome the limitations that they face with the manual method.

This tool has some advanced features that help the users extract all the files, emails, documents, address books, and contacts from them, then convert the file and save it to 35+ file-saving formats such as MSG, EML, EMLX, TXT, PST, MBOX, HTML, DOC, CSV, and PDF, etc.

How to Fix Thunderbird Not Receiving Email Professionally?

  1. Install and run the solution on your Mac or Windows device.
    install the tool
  2. After this, upload the Thunderbird profile data.
    choose thunderbird data
  3. Select the desired saving option from the list of 30+.
    saving option
  4. Choose the saving path or fill in the credentials to store the output.
    credentials to save
  5. Click on the Convert button to start the process.
    thunderbird not receiving email

Why Automated Tool Over Manual Methods?

  • Batch Migration: This solution helps to migrate Thunderbird files in batches, and you can save those files in a systematic order in different file formats at once without facing any file size limitations.
  • Maintain System Order: This helps manage the files in their original form and systematic order while fixing the “Thunderbird not receiving emails” issue.
  • Seamless Migration: This tool provides advanced features that help the user import unlimited email and contacts.
  • Migrate Attachments: This tool helps the users migrate all the emails and attachments, such as images, files, documents, etc.
  • Free Trial: Users can use the free trial of the tool to ensure its functioning before ordering the license.
  • Migrate Thunderbird Contacts and Calendars: Thus, users can easily migrate contacts from Thunderbird and save them in the CSV and vCard formats.

Final Comment

Therefore, this article briefly helped the user resolve issues about Thunderbird not receiving emails and let the users access their important emails. In this article, we discussed the manual method that can help resolve the error. However, they have multiple limitations that might not resolve the error of not sending and receiving emails, downloading email attachments, etc.

Thus, to get a better and reliable solution, there is an alternative way mentioned above. It helps the users fix the error of Thunderbird not downloading messages and leads them to access the emails easily from any device in any format, or directly to an email client. Hence, it is a one-stop Thunderbird solution.

Read Next: Expert Guide to Export Thunderbird Emails to PST Format