Thunderbird 52.2.0 update: issues with IMAP folders

The Thunderbird team has released Thunderbird 52.2.0 today, a new stable version of the popular cross-platform email client.
The new version of Thunderbird is already available through the email client's automatic update system. Most users who have it installed will have their Thunderbird client updated to version 52.2.0 automatically.
Update: The Thunderbird 52.2.1 update resolves the Gmail issue.
Problems with Gmail (folders not showing, repeated email download, etc.) introduced in version 52.2.0.
I ran into an issue with the new version, and would like to talk about it for a moment before I look at other things that are new.
The problem that I ran into was that some mailboxes, one regular Gmail account and one Google Apps Gmail account, would not list any folders whatsoever.
Update: A temporary fix for the issue is the following:
- Select Tools > Options. If you don't see Tools, tap on the Alt-key first.
- Go to Advanced, and click on Config Editor.
- Search for check_
- Set any of the following to false:
- mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new
- mail.check_all_pop_folders_for_new
- mail.server.default.check_all_folders_for_new
- Restart Thunderbird.
While the account is still listed in the Thunderbird sidebar that lists all accounts and folders, it does not list information about emails, an inbox, spam folder or anything else. To make matters worse, a click on the account title lists a generic page that does not function at all.
Even stranger is the fact that this seems to affect one or two of the accounts randomly. I restarted several times to see if it would resolve the issue, but one or both of the accounts showed the same symptoms most of the time.
Related to that, it seems at the least, is that entire mailboxes or headers of emails are downloaded anew when Thunderbird starts.
I was not able to fix the issue. What I did was roll back the client to version 52.1.1. You can download that version from the Thunderbird download website, and install it over the current version to go back to the older version of the client.
Not ideal, as Thunderbird 52.2.0 includes security fixes, but better than working with a client that won't display some accounts properly in its interface.
This did fix the issue on my end however. I tried upgrading to Thunderbird 52.2.0 twice, and I ran into the display issue both times.
To download an older version of Thunderbird, head to the download page, and copy one of the download links to the clipboard by right-clicking on the link and selecting the "copy link address" or comparable option from the context menu.
The US English link for Windows looks like this for instance: https://download.mozilla.org/?product=thunderbird-52.2.0-SSL&os=win&lang=en-US
To download an earlier version, replace the version part with the earlier version. For the link above, that would be https://download.mozilla.org/?product=thunderbird-52.1.1-SSL&os=win&lang=en-US
What is new in Thunderbird 52.2.0
Thunderbird 52.2.0 ships with the following changes:
- Clicking on links with references/anchors where target doesn't exist in the message not opening in external browser
- Mailing list (group) not accessible from macOS or Outlook address book
- Calendar: Invitations can't be printed
- Messages sent via the Simple MAPI interface are forced to HTML
- Large number of blank pages being printed under certain circumstances when invalid preferences were present
- Multiple requests for master password when GMail OAuth2 is enabled
- Attachment not forwarded correctly under certain circumstances
- Detection of non-ASCII font names in font selector
- Embedded images not shown in email received from Hotmail/Outlook webmailer
There are also two unresolved issues, none of which describes the issue that I'm facing:
- On Windows, "Send to > Mail recipient" does not work. Workaround: Install the Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 redistributable runtime library or the Universal C Runtime for Windows Server.
- Links in news messages including "remove all expired articles" not working
Now You: Which email client do you use currently?


You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?
I think its thunderbird
It is Mozilla Thunderbird.
Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.
If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.
THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!
Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…
Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.
This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)
Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.
You are a god – thank you!
thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)
Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers
Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
Thank you
Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)
Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.
I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!
Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007
Great tip! Thanks!
Worked for me, too – thank you!!!
It’s Worked for me, too
thank you very much!
I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!
Thank you so much. Solved!
Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
Thank you again. M
This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.
Thanks.
Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.
Thank you, this worked !!!!
Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!
Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!