If internet access is lost, Thunderbird will synchronize when access is reestablished. Thunderbird continually synchronizes with the email server as long as it is running and has access to the internet. Whenever Thunderbird starts, it checks the state of synchronization between the Thunderbird message repository and the email server, and then performs any transfers that are necessary (such as downloading new messages from the server, deleting from the server any messages that have been deleted locally, etc). (The draft must be copied from the Thunderbird message repository to the email server.)

A draft message is composed and saved (but not sent) in Thunderbird.

(The message must be deleted from the Thunderbird message repository.)

A message is downloaded to Thunderbird and later deleted by a web-based client (such as Yahoo Mail or Gmail).

(The message must be deleted from both the local machine and the email server.)

A message is downloaded to Thunderbird and deleted in Thunderbird.

To understand message synchronization, consider the following scenarios: In order to provide this kind of flexibility and functionality, though, messages must be synchronized between the local machine and the email server.

Full-text search of a message body is only possible on messages that have been downloaded. Search performance is much faster than searching a set of messages on a remote server.

Messages load faster when they are stored on a local drive.

Thunderbird users can download their messages to their local system and access them even when they are not connected to the internet.

For example, a Thunderbird user with a Microsoft Live account can use both the Thunderbird application that is installed on their system and the web-based interface provided by Microsoft.

Multiple clients can be used to access messages.

Therefore, messages can be stored both on the local machine and on the server, enabling numerous benefits: The IMAP protocol supports both online and offline activity. To see whether your account uses IMAP or POP, check the Server Settings page in the Account Settings: It is more modern and fully featured than POP (Post Office Protocol), which is the other major protocol for accessing mail messages. It enables a mail client (such as Thunderbird) to access messages stored on a mail server. IMAP stands for the Internet Message Access Protocol.

6 Configuring synchronization and disk space usage.

Mozilla thunderbird email client mac