Thunderbird messages not appearing in main folder

I have about five accounts tied to Thunderbird. They each have their separate inboxes, and the "smart folder" main inbox; which SHOULD include the contents of all inboxes. OS: 10.6.

But not all messages from all accounts are displayed in that main inbox smart folder. So when new mail comes in, it is distributed through all individual folders. How can I get it all to appear in the main inbox?

An example would be the two welcome emails for registering here - they are in the account specific inbox when I view it, but not the main inbox; even though the main inbox icon reads INBOX (2), indicating two new messages.

I'm sure you'll get a better answer than mine from an expert but here goes. When I installed my new iMac a couple of months ago the Apple mail system appeared automatically at once but I couldn't get Thunderbird to work at all. I've transferred all my personal e-mail folders to the new system and separately the e-mail addresses to Mac's address book.

I can't see much point in going back to Thunderbird even if I knew how. I would recommend Firefox over Mac's Safari as the latter is not compatible with some websites.

Thanks, but I would rather fix Thunderbird rather than trash it.

Thunderbird works fine for me on my iMac with the latest OS updates. Are you selecting "Inbox" above the list of inboxes to show all? That's what works for me. Also. above where it says "inbox" is a header that changes from "Smart folders" to other headings. You want it to be on "Smart folders" for that function to work.

That's the box I'm talking about, and yes it is set to Smart Folder.

OK, I'm home now and actually in front of my iMac. The version of TBird is 3.1, the box is changed to "Unified Folders" and it does appear to work. (Previous post I was on my work PC, using the Windows version. The Mac version is slightly different, or maybe they aren't exactly the same version, but in any case, it's now working under "Unified folders.")

Thanks for the update prompt; but there doesn't appear to be any improvement. The previous culprit emails do not appear in the unified folders - I will see what happens when a new message comes through.

Are the folders now united in stupidity; no longer being 'smart?

I have a solution that worked for me

I was having the very same problem, albeit with my "Sent" unified mailbox.

I'm not sure what the exact source of the problem was, but the solution I found seems to suggest that Thunderbird was just blanking out on the proper search folders to use. I figured I'd jump start its memory by reassigning the correct mailboxes to be searched for this unified mailbox.

I have 5 email accounts aggregated in Thunderbird. Here's exactly what I did to rectify my problem. Give it a shot on your Inbox folder and see what happens.

1. Right click on "Sent" mailbox, select "Properties".
2. In resulting window, click the "Choose..." button to select the folders for the unified mailbox to search for.
3. Deselect the primary Sent mailbox for each account (the end result being that there were no mailboxes that the unified mailbox was told to search in)
4. Thunderbird will not accept this configuration and will force you to select at least one mailbox to search in. Return to the "Choose..." dialog window and select (1) Sent mailbox for the unified mailbox to search.
5. As expected, sent messages for the only account I selected showed up in the unified mailbox.
6. For consistency's sake, I repeated the process 4 times for each remaining account and verified that the unified mailbox loaded each time. Success.

I'm back up and running. I've just started test driving Thunderbird (gotta have me some gpg integration). Loving Thunderbird, but have definitely been running into my fair share of configuration hurdles. Nothing insurmountable yet, but worthy of a few headaches.

Hope it works for you too!

Thank you for the effort, but it hasn't worked - yet. Only the first of the four accounts is appearing in INBOX unified folder.

However, when I right click on the account specific folder > Properties > Check the box "Include messages in this folder in global search results"; I can't click OK - I need to press cancel (which doesn't save the changes). I suspect this might be a factor.

The same window has a "REPAIR THIS FOLDER" option, which I will apply to all inboxes.

I'm a little disappointed in TB. This wouldn't be happening on the proprietary, default mail client (Apple Mail); which "just works", is much simpler, and "does one job and does it well".

"2012-curious," tithes

I have an idea.

The one folder which IS appearing is labeled "[email protected]". The three others (non-appearing) are labeled "Gmail - johnsmith1324"; and so on.

Perhaps I should delete the three culprit accounts, and re-add them. This time, set them up manually entering port numbers, etc. myself? Indeed, TB does offer to set up Gmail IMAP automatically. I suspect that is what I did with the three culprit accounts.

Also, I note that when Right click on Inbox > Properties > Choose, I notice that the Inbox and Sent Items (which DOES work) are on different levels.

INBOX is on the basic level, immediately below the email address. Root folder, if you like.

Sent Items; you need to go Email address > [Google Mail] > Sent Mail. And there it is - along with DRAFTS, ALL MAIL, and STARRED.

Maybe if I could create another INBOX on this level, inside the [Google Mail] folder?

I'm puzzled by your comment about 'trashing' TB if you switch to Apple Mail. I have e-mails originally saved in Outlook that go back to 2002. Since then I've moved them via TB to Apple Mail so you shouldn't lose anything.