How to Check for New Mail in Mozilla Thunderbird

Check your email automatically

What to Know

  • Select Account Settings from the Tools menu and go to Server Settings for the account you want to include in automatic mail checking.
  • Enter the desired interval under Check for new messages every ___ minutes and make sure the box is checked.
  • To check for new mail immediately after launch, make sure Check for new messages at startup is also checked.

This article explains how to auto-check for new mail in Mozilla Thunderbird. You can also set how often Thunderbird checks for messages.

How to Set up Mozilla Thunderbird to Check for New Mail Automatically

You can set up Mozilla Thunderbird to check for new messages automatically so that your inbox is always up to date, with no need to refresh manually. Here's how.

  1. Select Account Settings from the Tools menu.

    Thunderbird Tools > Account Settings
  2. For each account you want to include in automatic mail checking, go to Server Settings and enter the desired interval where you see Check for new messages every ___ minutes. Make sure the box is checked.

    Thunderbird server settings

    ​To have Mozilla Thunderbird check for new mail immediately after launch, too, make sure Check for new messages at startup is also checked.

    To have Mozilla Thunderbird receive new messages in the inbox immediately after they arrive in your account, check the box next to Allow immediate server notifications when new messages arrive.

  3. Click OK.

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