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very slow IMAP synchronization, FETCH error messages

  • 3 replies
  • 2 have this problem
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  • Last reply by christ1

rg266
rg266
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I have a very large IMAP inbox with 90,000 emails connected to Yahoo email server. Opening and closing emails is very slow or messages may simply not open. I constantly get the following message: "The current operation on "Inbox" did not succeed. The mail server for account ... IMAP account responded: [SERVERBUG] UID FETCH Server error - Please try again later."

I know I should reduce the size of the Inbox but I need to keep the emails for business reasons, cannot delete them, and I don't have an automatic way to move them to Archive and if I try to move them manually in large numbers, they hang the program and I cannot work for hours.

Thanks for any help.

I have a very large IMAP inbox with 90,000 emails connected to Yahoo email server. Opening and closing emails is very slow or messages may simply not open. I constantly get the following message: "The current operation on "Inbox" did not succeed. The mail server for account ... IMAP account responded: [SERVERBUG] UID FETCH Server error - Please try again later." I know I should reduce the size of the Inbox but I need to keep the emails for business reasons, cannot delete them, and I don't have an automatic way to move them to Archive and if I try to move them manually in large numbers, they hang the program and I cannot work for hours. Thanks for any help.

All Replies (3)

christ1
christ1
  • Top 25 Contributor
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I have a very large IMAP inbox with 90,000 emails

That's asking for trouble. The first thing I'd do is to create a full backup of your Thunderbird profile folder in case you haven't done so yet. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_Backing_Up_and_Restoring

I know I should reduce the size of the Inbox but I need to keep the emails for business reasons, cannot delete them,

You don't need to delete them, you just need to move them out of Inbox into a different folder, e.g. by using the archive function in Thunderbird. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/archived-messages Due to the size of your Inbox I wouldn't try to do that initially though.

and if I try to move them manually in large numbers, they hang the program and I cannot work for hours.

Move them in smaller numbers. Also create an exception in your anti-virus software for the Thunderbird profile folder, so that it won't be scanned by the real-time scanner. For more information about the profile location see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird

You can also use webmail to move messages. If you create any new folders you may need to subscribe to them in Thunderbird. Thunderbird will then sync the changes you made.

After successfully moving messages compact folders. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders

For the future ... http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keep_it_working_-_Thunderbird

rg266
rg266 Question owner
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Hi christ1,

Thanks, this is very useful. Is there a way to automatically Archive emails in the Inbox that are, say, 30 days old?

christ1
christ1
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Messages can only be archived manually, not automatically.