Show message count of all folders in Thunderbird

Thunderbird displays only the message count of unread mails of every folder by default. I tried to find a way to display the count of all messages instead which would help me get a better overview of the amount of mails inside a folder. I wanted to make sure that the unread messages number would still be shown as well.

The option to activate the message count for all mails is kinda hidden in Thunderbird. You need to enable the “Show Expanded Columns” option first which can be done by going to Tools > Options, selecting the Advanced tab and checking “Show Expanded Columns in the Folder Pane”.

When that is done click on the small icon next to Name in the folder pane and select total from the drop down menu. Once that is done you see the total amount of mails that are currently in the folder. It does however not display the number of mails that are in sub folders unless you expand them first.

I have not found a way to enable mail count that includes the sub folders by default.

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Tags: display all messages, display message count, email client, show messages, thunderbird
Categories: Email, Knowledge

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12 Responses to “Show message count of all folders in Thunderbird”

1. Sheep says:

   April 20, 2007 at 5:59 pm

   Helpfull! cheers!
2. dedawson says:

   May 26, 2007 at 12:16 am

   Just what I was looking for, thanks!
3. Martin says:

   January 16, 2008 at 5:35 pm

   Thanks a lot, this is what I was looking for.
4. Tonny says:

   January 27, 2008 at 12:12 pm

   thanks alot! it was exactly that i was trying to find. but i still have 1 problem unsolved – how to make Thunderbird to display number of messages in the whole account, but not only in the folders inside it?
5. knightwise says:

   February 7, 2008 at 11:29 am

   Thanx a million ! :) You saved me !
6. mdeloia says:

   February 10, 2008 at 9:39 pm

   Thanks Martin, this was driving me crazy. I’d just installed Thunderbird again after a new OS install, and couldn’t remember how to do this for the life of me. Why does mozilla.org make this so obtuse? :(
7. Tonny says:

   February 11, 2008 at 12:05 pm

   btw, if you reinstall OS, can you just copy the Firefox and Thunderbird folders and paste them to the new OS in order to keep the mail and settings?
   Thinking about moving to Linux, so want to keep my settings with me.
8. Joe says:

   April 28, 2008 at 9:01 pm

   I have an account in thunderbird that never shows in ‘all folders’. All other email accounts show fine. I checked settings and all match. Help!

   Joe
9. Murias says:

   August 24, 2008 at 5:02 am

   work great. thanks.
10. Rob says:

    November 15, 2008 at 9:39 am

    Thanks for this tip!
11. boardtc says:

    February 10, 2009 at 5:47 pm

    This is awesome. All this time I never knew. It even works for saved search (showing your tags) folders! Thanks a lot.

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