I'm using 68.6.0 and mine looks essentially like the page you linked. (I say essentially because, for example, where they are showing the advanced button appears to just be a small crop of the entire dialog box. However, it's otherwise like mine.) What do you see when you click advanced? Are you using POP?

Its incredible how Mozilla could write an article, then update the program and forget to update the article. How disorganized do you have to be for this to happen? Pretty disorganized! Its the first result when I search for Global Preferences in their website!

Yeah...essentially the same except where its not the same. Right. In "Message Storage" there is no Advanced button. There is one above that in Server Settings. That has nothing helpful.

I do see "Message Store Type" but its greyed out. Clicking the 2 options above it doesn't un-grey it. That looks like it might have something to do with Global Preferences.

I'm using IMAP on all accounts, maybe 1 or 2 is POP.

Advanced has: IMAP server directory (no options to choose from) Show only subscribed folders Server supports folders that contain....

More irrelevant stuff... At the bottom: Allow server to override these namespaces.

Maybe if I change the Local Directory location?

Going back to Tools/Settings/Advanced/Advanced Configuration there is: Enable Global Search and Indexer Manage Store Type for new accounts: File per message (maildir) File per folder (mbox)

Tried changing a few things but nothing made any difference. Then there is about:config. There are numerous global options there.

What I'd really like is to be able to do as many settings globally as possible. Changing settings for each account takes forever if you have a lot of accounts. Surely there is a way of doing things globally as much as possible. I recall that from before when I used to use Thunderbird a few years ago. I think the answer resides in about:config.

I just noticed that my default or first account seems to be added again at the bottom of my account list. It says "The following is a special account. There are no identities associated with it". Huh? When I highlight it I cannot delete it like I can with the other email accounts. Could it be there because its the first account created and thereby the default account?

Thunderbird has no search function in settings. Brilliant. How do you find anything with no search? Its like this was designed decades ago.

Well it does say POP in the title of the page, the first sentence, and the URL itself, which makes me think this is probably not a supported feature under IMAP. Maybe try the unified view instead?

BTW, the Advanced button IS in message storage on mine, but this is probably because I'm using POP.

> Well it does say POP in the title of the page, LOL....I just noticed that....I'll just crawl into a corner......

View, Folder, Unified made things better.

> BTW, the Advanced button IS in message storage on mine, but this is probably because I'm using POP.

No doubt! Now its all falling into place. Except where it isn't.  :)

So I'm curious what that secondary version of the default account is for. And how do you set an account as default? I see no way to do it anywhere. I'd love to meet the people who designed this thing. Its like they're working in different rooms, never communicating with each other. And Mozilla, knowing most people use IMAP, should have had a link at the top of the page to accomplish this in IMAP. Why they wouldn't just say use View, Folder, Unified is bewildering. Surely that is there when you have POP accounts as well as IMAP or no IMAP? Surely View options don't change?

How does Mozilla pay its bills? How do they raise money? And is Firefox and Thunderbird created solely by volunteers? If people are coming and going it would explain the disorganization and apparent lack of central oversight I see over and over in their products. I find their role in tech crucial, as its so important to have a more unbiased nonprofit in play. The browser and email is the cornerstone of internet activity after all. It would be shame to have to use Google for everything. They're like a steamroller crushing everything in their path.

What Mozilla REALLY needs to get into is VOIP and integrate it into email. That is truly the future where we don't have a numerical phone number, rather a "number" using numbers or letters allowing far few characters to be needed. Add capitalization and special characters and it can be around 100. With just 6 characters you have 1 trillion possibilities, more than enough for everyone and every business idea imaginable for a lifetime. That is the future of communication.

The Special Account is the Local Folder account and it a default account and cannot be deleted. For some unknown reason people think then need to rename it, forget they did that and then complain that they cannot remove an old account that they never use. Local Folders contains the Outbox and you use it everytime you send an email.

Mozilla dumped Thunderbird 4 or 5 years ago. A mostly volunteer group called the Thunderbird Council has been trying to keep it going so you can use it for free. They are looking for donations and volunteers.

And you cannot accomplish global folders using IMAP. Due to the way IMAP works not by some shortfall on Thunderbirds part. Let us know when you perfect the VOIP email. I want to use that!

Maybe read the even older article that tells you how to use Virtual Folders or Unified Folders to do something similar when using IMAP. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Global_Inbox

I find it sad how few email clients there are now. At a recent tech conference people were polled as to what the most important communications technology was on the internet, and email won that pole easily. But it seems like no one wants to pay for mail so most of the commercial email clients have faded away. (I still miss Eudora!)

Fortunately, Thunderbird is pretty darn good. Not perfect – but commercial programs I used before weren't either. If you can't donate time, I suggest donating money. I have in the past but I'm probably about due for another "boost".

https://give.thunderbird.net/en-US/

> I find it sad how few email clients there are now. Absolutely. I wouldn't mind paying if it really worked well and wasn't affiliated with anyone. Some things you just gotta have!

A problem was, because of my forgetfulness from the last time I used Thunderbird several years ago, I didn't notice some things when I set up my accounts. I'll probably need to delete them all and do it again much more carefully. For now they're unified but I probably made some setup errors. With Thunderbird it seems its better to just delete everything and start fresh. Its hard to "get into" some areas after the email account has been set up.

Also it seems a lot of Thunderbird help articles are assuming most people use POP, whereas, in reality, very few do these days. Most want push email but sometimes you don't want email streaming in all the time and with POP this is more easily controlled it seems. I've never been able to "halt" IMAP email no matter how long I set it to check or reset or whatever it does.

I am going to chime in, I am not trying to start a war, but I think some things need a little clarification.

First lets look at Mozilla, despite seeing them plastered all over this web site (it is their support site after all), that is aboutthe extend of their involvement. They let the Thunderbird project use their support site.

Next lets look at Mozilla's structure.

There is the Mozilla foundation. This is a US based not for profit organization. Due to some fine line walking they have a tax deductability for donation thing going on in the USA. They own some "for profit" corporations.

• One is the Mozilla corporation. These guys and gals make Firefox. They are a software development company. They are in no way actually affiliated with the Thunderbird project, although Thunderbird and firefox share a Mozilla.org web site for support.

• Then there is MZLA Technologies Corporation, this is the corporation that makes Thunderbird. This is arelatively new thing. Whilst I am not fully aware of the reasoning, apparently there were some things the Thunderbird council wanted to do that put Mozilla foundations not for profit status at risk, the corporation allows for those growth processes to occur. Mozilla have since 2012 had no management or development control over Thunderbird. It has been entirely a community run and managed project. At the moment, user donations are about the only source of income the project has.

Now lets talk about documentation. Back when a lot of the knowledge base articles were written. (10 years ago) most of us were using POP. IMAP was still relatively new to most people. Even though both IMAP and POP are over 20 years old, both protocols being ratified in the late 1990s.It would be great if more people gave their time to update the articles, but when you look it is the same names that have been appearing at the bottom of the pages for a decade. We just do not have enough people volunteering to edit and create documents.

In the case of the article you linked to originally all the graphic are from someone that uses a MAC, so many are off put just by the slight changes mac puts in their windows. But if you have time, editing the articles is open to all. I just don't have the time.

Personally I find Thunderbird difficult to use without the main menu displayed across the top of the program. It has been hidden in windows for years, but having it makes me happier, so I right clicked the toolbar back about V17 and select the menu bar from the menu that appeared.

Settings You say settings are difficult to access, but really there are too many ways to access account settings. You can right click the account in the folder pane and select settings, you can select them from the account central screen that is display when you click on the account name, you can access them from the main menu tools menu or you can access them from the application menu (three bars) on the toolbar. Once there you have access to very fine control over account settings.

Settings under options are likewise available from the main or application menus. again available to all.

Message store type. This will finally be an option, and the default for new account in the next major release. Until then it is disabled. It is years since I was the matt in the footer of this discussion https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/maildir-thunderbird

Setting an account as default is accomplished by setting the outgoing server in the outgoing server (SMTP) as Default.

"Halt" IMAP. There are two components here;

1. This is I would guess from your description the IMAP IDLE extension, the only provider I am aware uses it is Google, but it works in the background so knowing if it is used is somewhat problematical. In server setting you will see an "allow immediate server notifications when a new message arrives" entry turning this off disabled IDLE and stops the server telling Thunderbird it has new mail.
2. IMAP is synchronized, so when you click on a folder in online mode Thunderbird asks the server if the information it has is up to date. If it is not the folder is brought up to date. (clicking the two blue monitors icon in the bottom left of the screen toggles online state)

VOIP. Interesting, but the reality is that Thunderbird will not be there anytime soon. Thunderbird is primarily an email client and due to the shifting sands of the Mozilla platform on which it is based is undergoing major re writes of much of the user interface and dialogs. Mozilla have or are removing large parts of the base code and the Thunderbird project has been working to keep ahead of the changes for the past couple of years. Things like the major changes to addons and the removal of XUL (the user interface components) are taking a lot of resources.

Going forward So staying afloat, ahead on the Mozilla changes and generally improving the existing product are the big projects at the moment. Thunderbird "next" will also see the calendar integrated, along with end to end message encryption. A Major rewrite of the address book (that is about 10 years over due) Te road map is a little technical, but it is trying to address a lot of technical debt that accrued while the project rebuild itself after Mozilla left ad place Thunderbird for a period of growth. That is when you VOIP type messaging might get a look in.

VOIP Personally I think it is a very complex area Thunderbird is unlikely to invest the effort until they have an Android version as it is only when dealing with handsets that VOIP becomes really convenient. I hate getting out the camera and head set to use Skpe et al on a desktop computer. I just use my phone for those things. That is not to say an enterprising developer will not create an addon that utilizes an open source SIP library in the meantime. Historically there have been a number of VOIP and SIP addons come and go.