Clear and rebuild IMAP cache in Thunderbird

Question

I'm currently getting frequent crashes of my Thunderbird (10.0.2, Ubuntu Oneiric), and I suspect a corrupted IMAP cache. Is there a simple way to clear and rebuild it that does not involve recreating IMAP accounts?

I suspect that the problem/solution is OS agnostic, so I'm deliberately not posting this to ask.ubuntu.

Solution

If you think it is Thunderbird's cache, you can clear it in a few ways.

• You can recreate your Thundebird configuration by renaming ~/.mozilla-thunderbird.
• You can edit ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/profiles.ini and disable StartWithLastProfile. You can then create a new profile and see if the problem re-occurs. This is a variation on the previous solution.
• You can remove the cache from your profile. It is a subdirectory of ~/.mozilla-thunderbird/*default. You may want to just rename it. There are other files in this directory which may be corrupted.

If it is the IMAP server that has a corrupt cache you need to resolve it on that end. Unsubscribing all folders but your Inbox might help narrow this down.

Comments

[krlmlr]

I understand that the three options require recreating the e-mail accounts?

[BillThor]

Clearing the Cache can be done without recreating the email accounts. Creating a new profile require the e-mail accounts. With an IMAP server the mail is stored on the server so you won't loose any mail. Mail for POP accounts is stored locally, although some history may be available from the server.

[krlmlr]

Thank you. I have rebuilt the IMAP cache using the third variant; I've edited your reply a bit to make things clearer.