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Whenever I create a new label in my Gmail account, this creates a new IMAP folder. Sadly, that new folder does not show up in Thunderbird unless I restart Thunderbird.

This is not specific to Gmail. When I create a new IMAP folder on my own server, the result is the same.

To clarify. Here is what I'm doing. First, I create a new label in Gmail: enter image description here

But now it won't show up in my Thunderbird folder tree. Even though it knows about the folder and it is subscribed to: enter image description here

When I restart Thunderbird, the folder shows up just fine. I would like it to show up without restarting Thunderbird.

Oliver Salzburg
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12 Answers12

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In version 10.0.2 (current) and most recent versions:

Click on the account line in the folder tree (the line just above the Inbox)

You should get a screen of options, find Manage folder subscriptions and click on it

  1. Click the Refresh button
  2. Close the folder list window
  3. Click the little triangle at the top level of the account in the folder tree to hide the folder list
  4. Click it again to show the folder list

I've just confirmed that this works for me in 10.0.2

Oliver Salzburg
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Randy Orrison
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    That doesn't do what I want. The new folder appears in the subscription dialog (and is subscribed to). But it won't appear in my folder tree. – Oliver Salzburg Feb 21 '12 at 14:11
  • Weird. I have Gmail set up in Thunderbird at home, and will check if its working there when I get home, but this definitely works for me with other IMAP providers. – Randy Orrison Feb 21 '12 at 16:42
  • I have always had this issue, with multiple providers. It's just easiest for me to create new labels in Gmail to reproduce the issue. – Oliver Salzburg Feb 21 '12 at 16:47
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    Didn't work when I tried it, but after collapsing and reopening the folder list in Thunderbird it appeared. I've edited the answer to include those steps. Work for you? – Randy Orrison Feb 23 '12 at 20:31
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    Every time I tried it, I was already subscribed to the new folder. So that wasn't the problem. What actually made the difference was collapsing and expanding the tree. Thanks ;) – Oliver Salzburg Feb 23 '12 at 20:43
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    I had the collapse/expand the `parent` folder (not the top level folder), not the top level folder for these steps to work. – justderb Sep 29 '14 at 00:09
  • "Click on the account line in the folder tree" -- left, right, what? The answer "You can force a refresh of the folder list any time by collapsing and re-expanding it." is more straight-forward. – Jan-Philip Gehrcke Oct 05 '15 at 09:40
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    In newer versions, at least in Thunderbird 38.3.0, the "Manage folder subscriptions" is called "Subscribe...", and you need to right click the "account line". – andrybak Nov 12 '15 at 08:47
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    I had to restart Thunderbird after following the steps above before I could see the new folder – isapir Jun 29 '16 at 18:18
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    This worked with Version 60.5.1 – aggsol Mar 22 '19 at 09:57
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    This little rain dance worked exactly ask described for my with TB 68.4.1 (64-bit) on Ubuntu. Happy to have a work-around, but for me that is what it is. A normal option for this should have been present in the TB UI (e.g. right-click on account and have the option "refresh folder list" would make a lot more sense to me). – pjvleeuwen Jan 21 '20 at 10:50
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    There is [this bug created in 2009](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=482951) and [this bug created in 2014](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1082458). They seem quite stale, so I guess we should not expect a fix any time soon.... – pjvleeuwen Jan 21 '20 at 10:55
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    Thunderbird version 78 and this answer is still relevant. I deleted a folder on client2 but it was still there on client1, and trying to do anything resulted in an IMAP error. Simply collapsing and expanding the folder list refreshed it. – Curt Jan 14 '21 at 03:42
  • @PaulvanLeeuwen We can at least vote for the bug – endolith Mar 12 '21 at 15:25
  • If this does not work, select Show only subscribed folders from advanced server settings and restart the application. – Janaka Dombawela Jun 03 '21 at 13:25
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https://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/thunderbird-and-gmail

I think in that website you can find more useful information about Gmail x Thunderbird. Also, I found out in other forum the following:

Thunderbird refreshes the folder list when it connects to the server, in particular, at startup. You can force a refresh of the folder list any time by collapsing and re-expanding it.

Collapsing and expanding the folder list for the whole account worked for me.

Community
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Ander
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10

If you uncheck Tools » Account Settings » Settings » Advanced » Show only subscribed folders, it will display all folders.

That worked for me.

slhck
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Juraj Belina
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    Finally a solution! Weirdly, the other solutions wouldn't even disappear a folder that didn't exist on the server anymore. As soon as I unchecked this option, that folder disappeared and new folders reappeared. – Pricey Nov 08 '17 at 11:00
  • That made the "Sent Items" folder appear for me (which is the one that would not show). In my TB52, when I click on "subscribe..." the window does not show *any* folder as being subscribed, and interacting with those checkboxes has zero effect - there's a bug somewhere or else a setting is saved incorrectly. I'd like to know which config file to inspect. – bgmCoder Aug 07 '21 at 21:30
  • You can right-click on the account and choose **Subscribe...**. Then check the missing folders. – Kpym May 13 '23 at 07:43
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I know this is a old thread. But this seems to work:

Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> General -> Config Editor

Search for:

mail.server.default.check_all_folders_for_new

Change to true

example:

mail.server.default.check_all_folders_for_new = true

The open and close, settings come into effect.

Hope it helps someone else.

Riaan
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  • I believe this setting refers to whether an account is set to poll for new mail. That would be completely unrelated to the refresh in question. – Allen Dec 30 '19 at 01:18
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(Somewhat) surprisingly, in 2015, with Thunderbird 38.2.0, forcing Thunderbird to refresh the IMAP folder tree after adding a new directory/folder is still necessary.

I'm amazed that the answer is exactly as Randy Orrison described and Oliver Salzburg confirmed, above, over 3.5 years ago: How can I force Thunderbird to reload IMAP folder structure

Every time I tried it, I was already subscribed to the new folder. So that wasn't the problem. What actually made the difference was collapsing and expanding the tree. Thanks ;)

I had quit and relaunched Thunderbird, double-checked that I had subscribed to the IMAP folder in question, subscribed/unsubscribed, quit and relaunched again... nothing forced the new directory to be displayed — until I twirled-up and twirled-down the little arrow immediately to the left of the Inbox (in the folder pane panel). As soon as I did that, the new directory appeared!

It's curious to note that the new IMAP directory in question was "two levels deep", too. The structure was Inbox -> Subdirectory 1 -> Subdirectory 2, where Subdirectory 2 represents the IMAP directory that was just added. I mention this mostly to assert that the depth of the directory whose "arrow is twirled" seems not to matter, as long as the twirled directory is a parent of the directory that won't appear. Maybe twirling the top-level arrow, next to the account name, is the best option, since presumably it will force all subdirectories to be displayed (I didn't try that).

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this most frustrating problem's resolution! Full credit to Randy Orrison for the original solution.

Who's game for opening a bug report (or citing an existing report)?

Community
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Ben Johnson
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  • If I understand your post, this is just commending other posters for something that worked for you rather than introducing another solution. Answers should really be reserved for solutions to the question and each answer should provide another solution. With a little more rep, you will be able to upvote useful answers and post comments with supplementary helpful information. – fixer1234 Sep 09 '15 at 23:30
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    Thanks, fixer1234. Having read your thoughtful remarks, and having reread the accept answer more carefully as a result, I agree with your assessment. I feel it prudent to note, however, that the accepted answer instructs the user to "Close the folder list window", which is where he or she lost me. Maybe I use some "old school" view that is bound to my Thunderbird profile, but I don't have a "folder list window"; it's displayed permanently as a "docked pane" at left of my screen. When I saw this step, I ruled-out the answer, focusing only on the key comment. – Ben Johnson Sep 10 '15 at 02:32
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So Thunderbird 68.8.0 and possibly others

Find the "Hidden menu with the advanced configurations".

In my installation it lives in Preferences, General, Config Editor.

You need to "accept the risk".

I have set mail.imap.auto_unsubscribe_from_noselect_folders;false mail.server.default.using_subscription;false

Actually don't know which of these two options is the one or if both must be selected. In some recent version, you can maybe change this elsewhere, but not in my instance.

VojtaK
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  • Thanks for this. I was having the problem that I couldn't unsubscribe from imap folders. Setting `mail.imap.auto_unsubscribe_from_noselect_folders` to `true`, restarting TB, then setting it back to `false` and restarting TB a second time solved my problem :) – James Hibbard Dec 10 '20 at 10:52
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As none of the proposed solutions worked for me to get the disappeared subfolder to show in the sidebar on the left, I had to try something else. For me the folder was suggested on right click as a folder to put mails, but I had to create specific filters in the search field to view the folder, because it didn't show up in the sidebar.

My solution was to permanently rename the folder - for some reason it disappeared again if I renamed it back to the original name.

user497783
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This was driving me nuts and none of the previous answers worked for me. Following the advice to check/refresh the folder subscription settings would only show the new folder in the subscription dialogue — and even then not indicating that it has subfolders, which it has. Still, after countless restarts of TB, frantic reloading of the folder structure by collapsing and expanding the folder tree on all levels, the new folder and its subfolders wouldn't show up in the account pane. Host is all-inkl.com, where I couldn't find any settings to show/hide folders from mail clients.

So if anyone stumbles upon the same problem, here's what fixed it for me:

  1. right click on the mail account in the accounts pane
  2. click Settings > Server settings > Advanced
  3. make sure Server supports folders containing subfolders and messages is checked

Restart TB for good measure and enjoy.

robro
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It seems that the mechanisms and tricks of folder synchronisation has changed a lot since the OP. I could not follow the instructions given in many of the other answers. The following worked for me in 2022 (v91.7.0). Actually it is quite similar to the post of 10 years ago.

Screenshot of Thunderbird dialog with folder::subscribe item selected in drop-down menu

  • Right-click on folder line (the one above the Inbox folder). Clicking on other lines will not give access to the next step.
  • Select "Subscribe" item from the drop-down menu. A dialogue pops up.
  • Check boxes for the folders that you want to see, uncheck those you don't want. The dialogue allows multiple selections/actions at once.
  • Close the dialogue.

The list should be updated now. If newly added folders are big, it may take some time to synchronise their contents though.

Dirk
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  1. Click on the account line in the folder tree.
  2. In the main window click on the Folders management (Settings section)
  3. Click on the refresh button
  4. Choose folders for synchronization
balderys
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I'm a Linux/ LXLE user using Thunderbird with an Outlook account. What worked for me was to do two things:

1) In Thunderbird, I went to Edit> Preferences> Account Settings> Account Actions >Remove Account

I removed my email account from Thunderbird and closed the program.

The second thing I did may not have any effect on the result. However, I:

2) Went into Synaptic and completely removed the Thunderbird package then reinstalled it.

After that, I went back into Thunderbird and was then able to re-enter my email account and password- just like when setting up a new account.

A few seconds later the missing files and folder tree were restored from the remote servers.

Try step one on its own and see.

Hope it helps!

Barry Tobin
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    Even if that works, I would hardly call this a solution. This answer should be deleted. – Jonathan H Mar 15 '17 at 16:38
  • Both steps are on the extreme side but Step 2 is definitely overkill: uninstalling a package won't actually remove the `~/.thunderbird/` settings from users' home directories. – Anthony Geoghegan Feb 05 '19 at 16:56
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THB is nice sw and user friendly, but works as toy, I must back to outlook (most antiuserfriendly sw on the world) THB: I fear for every actualizing, all synd 3rd party sw no works.

Adam Koutny WRAK
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    As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please [edit] to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer). – Community Apr 16 '23 at 14:20
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    This does not provide an answer to the question. Once you have sufficient [reputation](https://superuser.com/help/whats-reputation) you will be able to [comment on any post](https://superuser.com/help/privileges/comment); instead, [provide answers that don't require clarification from the asker](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/214173/why-do-i-need-50-reputation-to-comment-what-can-i-do-instead). - [From Review](/review/late-answers/1183965) – Rohit Gupta Apr 16 '23 at 14:46