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Comment by godelski | Hacker News Reader

I've tried thunderbird multiple times and the upgrades look good so I'm going to try it again. But there's an issue I haven't ever clearly figured out. How do I integrate gmail properly? I love how much easier it was to setup this time, but how do I get the folders integrated? (Primary, social, promotions, updates, forums) Gmail is already sorting this for me but it is way too much to just view everything all at once. Forums and social are showing up automatically but not the others.

Also, I know people use a lot of addons. Are there any that I should look into?

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Not sure about the weird settings disappearing bit.

But regarding the categories, Gmail doesn't automatically expose these to IMAP. But there is something you can do even if a bit hacky.

Create 5 labels named after the 5 Categories. Then create 5 filters each of which look something like this.

Search criteria: "category:primary" -> Apply label "primary".

Repeat the above step for all the categories. Et Voila. Your categories will appear in IMAP as folders of the same name.

Are you using Thunderbird IMAP to synchronize with Gmail? IMAP lets you select which remote folders you want synchronized on the client. Maybe check your Gmail account in Thunderbird settings, find the IMAP section, and make sure all the Gmail folders you want to sync are enabled.

I am using IMAP. I don't see this option that you're talking about. FWIW, all my custom folders loaded correctly. It is just that don't see that top bar[0], except for social and forums (my least used ones).

I also noticed something odd. I closed it and reopened and lost all the info. I didn't install from snap or apt because apt was providing version 92 so I installed manually. I do see ~/.thunderbird (no ~/.config) but seems odd that the info wasn't stored there. This is a big red flag. ~~I also can't find in the settings where to specify the storage location.~~ (found)

[0] https://i.imgur.com/AbCEZSm.png

The idea to use special filter is a good one, but as others stated the 'top bar' isn't a real thing in email. Maybe some sort of IMAP extension, but it's a bit like asking how to put onenote into a Google doc - you might find some workaround but you are looking at two different things.

I don't use those folders, I also don't use a local email client these days...

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