Local Folders

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Revision as of 00:06, 14 February 2006 by Tanstaafl (talk | contribs) (added more imap uses of local folders)
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In Thunderbird and the Mozilla Suite, "Local Folders" is the name given to the set of mail folders at the bottom of the folders pane. Many newcomers to Thunderbird or the Mozilla Suite don't know what these Local Folders are for, or why they're called that in the first place.

Uses for Local Folders

  • For people who have an IMAP e-mail account, where mail is stored "remotely" (on the server) rather than being downloaded and stored "locally" (on your own computer), Local Folders provides a convenient place to store messages locally when desired. If you select a remote folder for offline use Thunderbird stores a copy in Local Folders. If you enable auto-save of drafts its less likely to interfere with your typing if you store it in Local Folders.
  • If you use Thunderbird's Global Inbox for your POP3 e-mail accounts, your mail for those accounts will be downloaded into Local Folders.
  • When you compose a message and save it to be sent later ("File -> Send Later"), it will be saved in the Unsent Messages folder in Local Folders.
  • Sent newsgroups messages are saved in Local Folders by default.
  • Some people use Local Folders as a place to archive old messages, so that their actively used mail folders are smaller and less cluttered.

Renaming Local Folders

To change the name of Local Folders, just right click on "Local Folders" in the folders pane, choose "Properties", and then in the dialog that pops up, enter the new name in the "Account Name" field. Alternatively, you can go to "Tools -> Account Settings" (in Thunderbird) or "Edit -> Mail & Newsgroup Account Settings" (in Mozilla Suite), then click on "Local Folders" in the left-hand pane, and type in the new name in the "Account Name" field.

Moving the storage location for Local Folders

By default, Local Folders is stored in your profile folder, as a subfolder of the "Mail" folder. To change this storage location, see Moving your mail storage location for instructions.

Getting rid of Local Folders

It's possible to hide Local Folders, but it's not easy, not without risk, and not recommended. You have to go to your profile folder and edit the prefs.js file very carefully. See these external documents: [1] [2]. Keep in mind that mistakes in editing "prefs.js" can mess up your profile, and that hiding Local Folders might cause problems with Unsent Messages (which normally get stored in Local Folders [3]) or other program behavior. It's better to ignore Local Folders instead of trying to hide them.