I preume you can see emails listed but the global search function is not available. First see if you have any addons causing a conflict.

Restart Thunderbird in Safe mode.

• Help > Restart with addons disabled.

Tools > Options > Advanced > General tab Is the 'enable global search and indexer' now available - not greyed out.

If available then select and click on OK however, this means there is an addon which is causing a conflict. So you will need to test by diabling addons and then enabling one at a time until you discover which one is causing the problem. Maybe the addon will need to be updated.

If restarting in Thunderbird Safe mode did not help.

If you have no backup then create one Backup your Profile folder http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup

Compact all folders. File > compact folders

Make hidden files and folders visible:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Show_hidden_files_and_folders

In thunderbird

• Help > Troubleshooting Information
• click on 'show folder'

a new window opens showing Profile folder contents.

• Close Thunderbird now.

Do you see either one or both of these files? If yes, then delete them.

• global-messages-db.sqlite
• global-messages-db.journal

• close window - top right X
• Open thunderbird.

Tools > Options > Advanced > General tab Is the 'enable global search and indexer' now available - not greyed out.

If 'enable global search and indexer' option is available

• select the checkbox and click on OK

If still not available

• click on 'Config Editor' button

In top search type: global look for these lines:

• mailnews.database.global.indexer.enabled; Value = true
• mailnews.database.global.logging.console; Value =true

What is the Value? Does it say 'true' or 'false'

• If 'false', double click on each line to toggle the value from 'false' to 'true'

close config editor - top right X

Did this put a check in the 'enable global search and indexer' checkbox? click on OK to save changes.

Thanks for the response. I went through all of this but unfortunately the mailnews.database.global.indexer.enabled; Value = true is set to false and will not toggle as its set to 'locked' even when I run as admin.

Could this be a setting put on there by my IT department? If so this is new as it worked 2 weeks ago before the computer rebuild

re: lockPref("mailnews.database.global.indexer.enabled", false); Yes, this is a setting that could be made by the IT department.

The usual reason is that Global search and indexing can use alot of disk space which might be an issue in a corporate environment.