Google Desktop Thunderbird
October 29th, 2007 · by David Bradley
Some time ago, I noticed that Google Desktop Search (GDS) was no longer indexing my Thunderbird emails. It suddenly dawned on me while trying to find a whole bunch of messages that I knew for a fact I had received earlier in the week. Web history, documents, images, everything else was indexed fine, but there were no longer any emails. And, more to the point, I had GDS set to index and search Thunderbird.
If this happens to you, the most likely cause is that you installed a new version of Thunderbird. For some buggy reason, GDS then ignores the emails altogether. The simple cure would be for Google to fix this annoying little bug, but in the meantime, the only workaround, other than delving into the raw index settings is to reinstall GDS. This isn’t difficult, of course. First, check that you have the latest version of Thunderbird (you don’t want to have to go through all this again). Next, uninstall GDS but make sure you keep your old index. Then, head over to the GDS homepage and download the latest version and run the installer.
Finally, instruct Google to carry on indexing, fire up Thunderbird (it has to be running to be indexed by GDS), and go make yourself a coffee…or three. When you return some time later, you should find your emails have all been nicely indexed. You will notice in the image above that as of October 3, 2007, GDS had indexed 31,622 emails on my system…sometimes I hanker for the days before email.
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6 responses so far ↓
Tom Lehrer // Mar 20, 2008 at 1:41 am
Didn’t work for me.
I’m running Thunderbird 2.0.0.12, and I just installed GDS today, with the box for email checked. GDS finished indexing, and no sign of my thousands of emails. Should I specifically point GDS to the directory containing my Thunderbird files, or am I doing something wrong?
Is it a standard installation of Thunderbird? Are the folders in the standard locations? Did you have Thunderbird running while Google was doing its indexing. I think the key is to reinstall GDS after you install any updates for Thunderbird and to make sure Thunderbird is active while you index the hard drive.
db
Tom Lehrer // Mar 20, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Yes, standard installation. Yes, I went with the defaults for the folders - it looks like this:
C:\Documents and Settings\TM\Application Data\Thunderbird plus the subfolders beneath that.
Yes, TB was running while GDS was indexing.
It didn’t work - until last night, when I pointed “Preferences” directly to my TB mail folders using “Add a folder or drive”. Right now it’s indexing my mail!!
After it finishes, I plan to uninstall GDS, reinstall it, and try indexing again without the forced pointing above, just to see if it’s a coincidence. But I don’t know why it didn’t work the first two times I tried it…
Thanks for your quick response.
Tom, glad to hear you got it working. I don’t know what could have been the problem. Google, of course, would suggest that you simply use GMail instead of Thunderbird and then there would be no issue at all. And, now that you can sync a GMail account with an email client like T/B that’s probably the best way forward for anyone who cannot get this to work but wants their email to be easily searchable.
db
PS Love your songs by the way
Tom Lehrer // Mar 21, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Heh, would you believe I wrote that when I was still lecturing at Harvard back in 1959!
Just kidding, same name, wish I had written all those great songs, but I’ll have to content myself with synching instead of singing…
Thanks again, I enjoy your blog.
Or is it Haaaarvaaard?
Heheheh
db
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