Allow Thunderbird User to Enable/Disable an Account Temporarily

[Raft8670]

In Account Settings there should be a tick-box for enabling/disabling each account. There are times you want to disable (ie switch to offline) an account temporarily until, say, you fix a problem. Not being able to do so means you get annoying error messages. Even if you disable periodic checking and checking at startup, TB will still try to connect to the server if you select one of the account's folders. A switch would disable the account completely. Disabled accounts could appear greyed out, crossed out etc in the accounts/folders tree.

[samglover]

I would like this feature for the opposite reason @sjallyn wants it. When I clock out at the end of the day or go on vacation I want to clock out of my email, too. I would like to be able to enable/disable an email account similar to the way calendars can be enabled and disabled. Or even better, with an on/off toggle on the account screen (the screen that shows up when clicking on the email account name/top-level folder).

[gbvalsol]

The absence of this feature is what keeps me from migrating from Evolution. For different reasons I have about 15/20 email accounts, but I only enable what I need in the moment. In Evolution this is very handy, because what you do not need, completely disappear from your sight.

[Zap36]

I too request this feature. I've been googling for an hour now and am surprised there's no proper way to do this.

[wsmwk]

I am merging this idea into https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/allow-thunderbird-user-to-enable-disable-an-account-temporarily... which has the same objecive.

[wsmwk]

I am merging this idea into https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/allow-thunderbird-user-to-enable-disable-an-account-temporarily... which has the same objective.

[wsmwk]

I am merging this idea into https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/allow-thunderbird-user-to-enable-disable-an-account-temporarily... which has the same objective.

[Jarda]

Good. The TB team merged a few similar topics into one, which means they started working on this idea. 

[nilstoedtmann]

> This idea is one of the basic and most ignored and has been there since decade

This is even more true than you might realise.

This was filed (at the time of me writing this) 19 years ago in 2005, less than 12 months after Thunderbird 1.0 was released:

• feature request: per-account offline status

It is still open.

And here a very similar one 13 years ago (2011):

• Ability to disable an IMAP account without losing e-mail

And yes, that one is still open, too.

I have been using Thunderbird and its ancestors for over 20 years, and I have been waiting for this feature the entire time. I wonder whether it takes another 20 years to materialise beyond clever workarounds.

[thatworkshop]

I would also like to have this feature in Thunderbird. Thanks Mozilla team 🙂

[enuff]

This needs to be implemented. The likelihood of having in Thunderbird old email accounts where either the account doesn't exist on the server anymore, or the server itself doesn't exist anymore, or who knows what else, is only get higher for everyone as time goes on.

There needs to be a way to archive / disable an account with deleting it.

[TAGarrison]

I manually download all of my mail. I never allow T-bird to automatically check for mail.
When I have as many accounts as I do, and I do not want to delete any, it's not possible to stop errors when manually checking E-mail.
A simple "disable", or some method of "Do Not Check" for the account would really be great.

[Katy]

+1 for this. Such an option should've been there from the very beginning.

[Jarda]

Hi  TAGarrison
I tried this, but it does not work. I did the same as you recommended a few years ago.

1. The TB is trying to connect to the server. So it is not working. When you click on INBOX, Thunderbird tries to connect to it and requires a password (when the password was changed). And it does not matter if the account exists/does not exist on the server
2. I have many email accounts and do not want to click on each account separately to download the emails.

[TAGarrison]

It would seem the T-Bird tech's have been having their way with us. I found where the "hidden" button is for what we are trying to do.

Go to "Tools > Account Settings" then select any 1 account you have.
Click on "Server Settings".
At the bottom of the window find "Message Storage", and to the right, click on "Advanced..."

In that little pop up window, at the bottom, look for "Include this server when getting new mail".
Be sure there is "NO" check mark in the box. Click "OK" to close that little window.

I just manually checked my mail and all the accounts I wanted checked were downloaded, the accounts I wanted disabled were not checked and there were no requests for password or anything else. T-Bird simply functioned normally.

So, like me, wipe the egg off our face and thank the tech's for building that into the system...even though it's difficult to find the little bugger.