How to prevent thunderbird from creating ~/Thunderbird folder ?

Lone_Wolf · 2026-01-26 12:12:46

A few days ago I noticed cli completion of ~/T didn't give me ~/Temp as intended.

Checking the directories under $HOME revealed the existence of a directory Thunderbird .
I didn't create it, it was empty so I deleted it.

Unfortunately every time I start thunderbird (.desktop, /usr/bin/thunderbird, /usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird ) it recreates this folder.

My thunderbird profile is in the same location it has always been ( ~/.thunderbird ) and works fine.

StarWolf3000 · 2026-01-26 12:33:33

External bug report: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2007074

Seems to be related to XDG changes.

Last edited by StarWolf3000 (2026-01-26 12:51:54)

Lone_Wolf · 2026-01-26 13:58:35

Thx, bookmarked.

StarWolf3000 · 2026-02-02 12:09:09

Still present in Thunderbird 147.0.1 (but Firefox 147.0.1 has it fixed already). Hoping for fix in 147.0.2 or greater.

Nikolai5 · 2026-02-05 14:47:10

Was just about to make a post seeing if others had seen this too and because Mozilla really prefer if it's replicable on multiple PCs, nice to see its not anything I've done and that there's already a bug report with Mozilla.

Thanks

Lone_Wolf · 2026-02-23 12:36:33

Thunderbird 147.0.2-1 still does this.

https://hg-edge.mozilla.org/comm-centra … b7d2988a76 has been merged and supposedly solves the issue.

Unfortunately the new code appears to only change the created folder to thunderbird with a small t, not ensure it's not created.

imply_option("MOZ_APP_PROFILE", "Thunderbird", when=target_is_windows | target_is_osx)
imply_option("MOZ_APP_PROFILE", "thunderbird", when=~target_is_windows & ~target_is_osx)

Looks like we need to create a custom .desktop file to ensure the empty folder gets deleted after closing thunderbird.

mico · 2026-03-08 08:22:56

This has changed from bad to worse. Thunderbird 148.0-4 creates not one but two folders on each startup: ~/Downloads and ~/Thunderbird.

StarWolf3000 · 2026-03-08 10:40:19

At least for me ~/Downloads was created, when I installed the Plasma desktop (through xdg-user-dirs).

Lone_Wolf · 2026-03-08 13:28:04

Correct , see https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_us … irectories

In case you want to stop the creation of some of those folders try running

# systemctl --user --global disable xdg-user-dirs

In case you only want to do this for one user, don't add --global and run the command as that user.

Arch Linux

#1 2026-01-26 12:12:46

How to prevent thunderbird from creating ~/Thunderbird folder ?

#2 2026-01-26 12:33:33

Re: How to prevent thunderbird from creating ~/Thunderbird folder ?

#3 2026-01-26 13:58:35

Re: How to prevent thunderbird from creating ~/Thunderbird folder ?

#4 2026-02-02 12:09:09

Re: How to prevent thunderbird from creating ~/Thunderbird folder ?

#5 2026-02-05 14:47:10

Re: How to prevent thunderbird from creating ~/Thunderbird folder ?

#6 2026-02-23 12:36:33

Re: How to prevent thunderbird from creating ~/Thunderbird folder ?

#7 2026-03-08 08:22:56

Re: How to prevent thunderbird from creating ~/Thunderbird folder ?

#8 2026-03-08 10:40:19

Re: How to prevent thunderbird from creating ~/Thunderbird folder ?

#9 2026-03-08 13:28:04

Re: How to prevent thunderbird from creating ~/Thunderbird folder ?

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