Ok, wait. The "QuickFilter" keeps appearing every time this happens. I remove it from the toolbar and turn it off under views, and a minute later, it's back again, and I'm freezing on "Searching folder" again.

Yep. I clicked into a different folder for a second, and when I clicked back, the QuickFilter bar was back and I was stuck waiting for the beachball. How do I get rid of that annoying "QuickFilter"?

I'm sorry, I'm not actually straying off topic here, bear with me a moment... but... is it just me, or is Thunderbird really "spooky" and weird? I mean, it seems to make it's own decisions and do things on its own. First it keeps searching when I am not telling it to search. I thought maybe this problem was being caused by the gmail All Mail folder, so I unsubscribed from the All Mail folder under my account synchronization controls... and All Mail is still there! It's definitely unchecked in the setting, and I've restarted three times now, and it's still there and seems to be downloading new mail into it.

Does this program just have a mind of its own? Am I beating my head against the wall trying to set up a program that just plain doesn't work? Is this a bad choice for a Mac email program?

Yeah, right this minute it's telling me that it's "Opening [Gmail] All Mail", exactly what I told it not to do.

Yeah. A email program that worked right would never do this after I unsubscribed from the All Mail folder:

Wow. And now columns that I told it to show in my inbox aren't showing anymore, and email that I filtered out of my inbox are back in it. My god, this is the "spookiest" app I've ever seen. Nothing I tell it to do has anything to do with what it actually does. Am I doing something wrong here? Or is Thunderbird really just totally all-around broken? How have people used this app for years when you can't control it?

Oh my god... I went in and deleted the "All Mail" mailbox file and the .msf file from the Thunderbird folder and reopened Thunderbird and made sure it was gone... AND NOW IT'S BACK AGAIN.

Can anybody please tell me, what's wrong with this program? Is it possible to make it work right or am I wasting my time?

Look at this... this is two minutes after I literally deleted this mailbox off my hard drive, having already unsubscribed earlier. I have never before seen an email client that required so many hours of troubleshooting JUST TO START USING. Did every one of you who uses it have to go through this much trouble, or am I just lucky?

Is there some trick to just make it work right, that I'm missing?

Ok, so, I finally turned it on and off a few times on the Gmail side, and quit and restarted Thunderbird, and the All Mail folders were finally gone.

And now, I'm just trying to scroll through my inbox... and it's been frozen for 5 minutes on "Searching Folder" again when I wasn't searching.

Why is it searching? What is it searching for? Where is it searching? Why can't I just use it like a normal email program without it freezing to "search" every few minutes? Why is it so incredibly difficult to understand what Thunderbird is doing?

HELP!

Um, now I can't archive anything. Is that because the All Mail folder is gone, or is Thunderbird just even more broken now than it was a few minutes ago?

I restarted in Safe Mode. As soon as it opened, it said "Searching Folder" and froze on the Beach Ball.

Hello, has anybody gotten this app to work on El Capitan? Am I wasting my time?

Ok, in safe mode, there's no way to click on an email and find all emails for the same sender or subject. You need a plugin for that. :headdesk:  :headdesk:  :headdesk:  :headdesk:  :headdesk:

Why isn't there a usable email client for OS X?