When clicking on an account and choosing, "Get Messages" Thunderbird
fetches the headers for the newsgroups in that account. When the number
of new messages exceeds the number in settings, a little box prompt
pops up that says,

"There are X new message headers to download for this newsgroup."

"Download all headers"

"Download X headers"

If there are many groups with more headers than the set limit, this
box popus up repeatedly and is an annoyance. How do I stop this prompt
so that Thunderbird just automatically downloads the X headers without
prompting?

This is the normal behavior of other news clients. How do I get
Thunderbird to do the same?

--
G.K.

On 10/20/2023 8:48 PM, G.K. wrote:
> When clicking on an account and choosing, "Get Messages" Thunderbird
> fetches the headers for the newsgroups in that account. When the number
> of new messages exceeds the number in settings, a little box prompt
> pops up that says,
>
> "There are X new message headers to download for this newsgroup."
>
> "Download all headers"
>
> "Download X headers"
>
> If there are many groups with more headers than the set limit, this
> box popus up repeatedly and is an annoyance. How do I stop this prompt
> so that Thunderbird just automatically downloads the X headers without
> prompting?
>
> This is the normal behavior of other news clients. How do I get
> Thunderbird to do the same?
>

prefs.js

Each server remembers your selection for later.
That is why there is one line per server.

user_pref("mail.server.server3.max_articles", 1000);
user_pref("mail.server.server4.max_articles", 2000);

Exit Thunderbird.

Edit prefs.js and select a larger number. Prefs.js is a text file. Save.

Start Thunderbird.

Paul

On 10/20/2023 5:48 PM, G.K. wrote:
> When clicking on an account and choosing, "Get Messages" Thunderbird
> fetches the headers for the newsgroups in that account. When the number
> of new messages exceeds the number in settings, a little box prompt
> pops up that says,
>
> "There are X new message headers to download for this newsgroup."
>
> "Download all headers"
>
> "Download X headers"
>
> If there are many groups with more headers than the set limit, this
> box popus up repeatedly and is an annoyance. How do I stop this prompt
> so that Thunderbird just automatically downloads the X headers without
> prompting?
>
> This is the normal behavior of other news clients. How do I get
> Thunderbird to do the same?
>

On my old Thunderbird 52.9.1, I can select the account, right-click, and
select Settings.

On the left side of the Settings window, I select Server Settings.

On the Server Settings pane, I can then uncheck the checkbox for
"Ask me before downloading [nn] messages"
where [nn] is some user-settable number. Alternatively, I can set a
larger or smaller number, leaving the checkbox checked.

This will apply to all newsgroups in the account but not to newsgroups
in other accounts. Each account can have a different setting.

--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rosde.com/>

X (previously known as Twitter) is the place where truth goes to die.

"G.K." <g@k.invalid> wrote:

> When clicking on an account and choosing, "Get Messages" Thunderbird
> fetches the headers for the newsgroups in that account. When the number
> of new messages exceeds the number in settings, a little box prompt
> pops up that says,
>
> "There are X new message headers to download for this newsgroup."
>
> "Download all headers"
>
> "Download X headers"
>
> If there are many groups with more headers than the set limit, this
> box popus up repeatedly and is an annoyance. How do I stop this prompt
> so that Thunderbird just automatically downloads the X headers without
> prompting?
>
> This is the normal behavior of other news clients. How do I get
> Thunderbird to do the same?

Perhaps in the config of an account, look for something like "Get X
messages", and change X to some huge number (i.e., whatever is its upper
limit). You could end up retrieving hundreds of thousands of messages.

Be easier if there was an option "Get all messages", but some newsgroups
have hundreds of thousand of messages, especially when first subscribing
to a newsgroup, and retrieving them all could take hours or days
depending on the connection speed between you and the server, and max
speed afforded on the server's end to your connection.

If you already upped "Get X messages" to the max count, well,
downloading 99999 (or whatever is the limit) will take a l-o-n-g time,
so start the download, go to work, and when you get back home check
progress on all those downloads.

On 21/10/2023 04:53, VanguardLH wrote:

> Be easier if there was an option "Get all messages", but some newsgroups
> have hundreds of thousand of messages, especially when first subscribing
> to a newsgroup, and retrieving them all could take hours or days
> depending on the connection speed between you and the server, and max
> speed afforded on the server's end to your connection.

This would also happen when a newsgroup is repaired (Properties | Repair
Folder). I do this fairly frequently just to tidy things up. TB is
particularly poor at this, firstly because it defaults to "Download all
Headers" rather than "Download (X headers)" - although I'm pretty sure
that it used to be the other way round with earlier versions. And
secondly, because you can't do it to all newsgroups within a news
server, you have to go through them all separately. Even OE6 could tidy
up all the NGs at once!

--

Jeff

G.K. wrote:

> a little box prompt pops up that says, "There are X new message headers
> to download for this newsgroup." "Download all headers" "Download X
> headers" If there are many groups with more headers than the set limit,
> this box popus up repeatedly and is an annoyance. How do I stop this
> prompt so that Thunderbird just automatically downloads the X headers
> without prompting?

Tell it to download e.g. 2x the number of new messages than actually
exist ... It'll remember that number and you'll be less likely to get
asked again, unless you go on holiday for a month.

On 10/20/2023 8:48 PM, G.K. wrote:
> When clicking on an account and choosing, "Get Messages" Thunderbird
> fetches the headers for the newsgroups in that account. When the number
> of new messages exceeds the number in settings, a little box prompt
> pops up that says,
>
> "There are X new message headers to download for this newsgroup."
>
> "Download all headers"
>
> "Download X headers"
>
> If there are many groups with more headers than the set limit, this
> box popus up repeatedly and is an annoyance. How do I stop this prompt
> so that Thunderbird just automatically downloads the X headers without
> prompting?
>
> This is the normal behavior of other news clients. How do I get
> Thunderbird to do the same?
> In Account Setting, Server Settings. In the second line in the Server
Settings topic, it says "Ask me before downloading more than" Enter
any number you wish. There is a suggested formula to calculate an
amount in one of the other post to this thread. I have 200 and it
works nicely for me.

This option has been in Thunderbird settings for the last many versions.
Personally I don't ever remember the option not being there and I have
been using Thunderbird since I was forced to change from an OS/2
computer to a Windows computer.