topic Re: Collapsible folder pane in Discussions

Folder pane is expanded on startup. Should be collapsed.

Auskan — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 04:42:39 GMT

Mozilla, I previously made a monthly contribution in support of Thunderbird because it added value to my life. But the Oct '23 update removed the option to collapse folders for unknown reasons (surely this wasn't intentional?) and I'm therefore withdrawing support. In the previous version I could see all my mailboxes, with just the inbox expanded, which made seeing and navigating to new messages easy. In the "upgraded" version, the folders are automatically expanded which means I can't see half of my accounts without scrolling, meaning I sometimes miss an email for several days. I've googled for a solution and also searched this forum and it appears I am not alone in being frustrated by this. I see that some people are reverting to an older version of Thunderbird and others switching to a different email client altogether. I haven't yet decided which camp I'm in, but what I do know is that the current version is a step backward from what we had before!

Re: Collapsible folder pane

Bay_Thunder — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 16:17:01 GMT

Please can we have a button to collapse all email accounts and folders.

Re: Collapsible folder pane

wsm — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 14:10:45 GMT

@Auskan, thank you for your donation.

> the Oct '23 update removed the option to collapse folders for unknown reasons (surely this wasn't intentional?) and I'm therefore withdrawing support. In the previous version I could see all my mailboxes, with just the inbox expanded

I believe this was a bug, and it now works. Do you agree?

Re: Collapsible folder pane

baywanderer — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 15:36:50 GMT

no. when i load thunderbird all my folders are expanded - and its a real pain

Re: Collapsible folder pane

wsm — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 17:14:07 GMT

> no. when i load thunderbird all my folders are expanded - and its a real pain

Thanks for your follow up. I cannot reproduce this on a Mac with ESR 140, beta 147, nor nightly builds.

This forum is for discussion. So please post your issue at the support site https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new/thunderbird with version number and OS. Thanks.

Re: Collapsible folder pane

wsm — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 04:41:37 GMT

>> I believe this was a bug, and it now works. Do you agree?
> no. when i load thunderbird all my folders are expanded - and its a real pain

My question really was to Auskan, but they fail to answer.

I retested on both Windows and Mac and I am still unable to reproduce.

I also checked for prior bug reports. An issue was fixed in version 140 through Bug 1964265 - In the folder pane, at restart, all folders are expanded by default - should keep the collapsed/expanded settings from before restart. So we'd need to know your version and the details of your situation.

But this place here is for discussion. To improve your situation, you'll want to post at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new/thunderbird/form where support is provided.