1491976 - thunderbird abducts local inbox (Linux) - local inbox (/var/spool/mail/USERNAME) was emptied

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Matthias Buchmeier]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:62.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/62.0
Build ID: 20180913170256

Steps to reproduce:

Start thunderbird on Linux (Ubuntu 18.04) for the first time.


Actual results:

The contents of my local inbox (/var/spool/mail/USERNAME) was 'abducted' to a folder ".thunderbird/gwwvu74q.default/Mail/localhost/Inbox" (i.e. the local inbox was emptied and the content moved to that thunderbird-folder.


Expected results:

Thunderbird should have asked or warned me. The unwary user might actually lose their Inbox, unless they are able to figure out what happened (thunderbird moved away the content) and were their emaills went (to a difficult to find folder with a cryptic name).

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Did you set up the account as movemail account type?

Walt may have some advice.

Comment 2

[Matthias Buchmeier]

I didn't set up anything. Just clicked on an email link in browser. Which opened the default mail-client (thunderbird) with the default configuration (seems to by USERNAME@MYLOCALHOSTNAME). Maybe the package maintainers on Ubuntu or Debian have set this up and are to be blamed.

Comment 3

[WaltS48 [:walts48]]

What email client were you using prior to Thunderbird to have mail in (/var/spool/mail/USERNAME)?

That location is empty for me, and all my mail accounts are in the profile that's located in the hidden folder at ~/.thunderbird. Which was created when I started Thunderbird for the first time.

I also had to setup email and other accounts that I use before I could do anything with Thunderbird.

I would think if you started Thunderbird for the first time you wouldn't have had any mail accounts setup.

I'm not sure if Thunderbird asks if you want to Import settings from another email application. I've only used Thunderbird.

Comment 4

[Matthias Buchmeier]

I use fetchmail and alpine. Some email links on webpages are encrypted with javascript, which requires clicking them to get the address. I didn't yet change the default email client, so thunderbird is launched. Probably that's the issue.

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

So what do the linux distro people say?  And is Thunderbird working as designed, or bug in Thunderbird?

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Doesn't sound like a Thunderbird bug