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Is this some new "feature" for thunderbird 8? When I start thunderbird it starts by opening thunderbird. Once it is loading thunderbird it loads another 6 thunderbirds.

The windows are called

Mozilla Thunderbird 
Inbox - myEmail@gmail.com - Mozilla Thuderbird
Inbox - AotherEmail@gmail.com - Mozilla Thuderbird
Inbox - AotherEmail2@gmail.com - Mozilla Thuderbird
Inbox - AotherEmail2@gmail.com - Mozilla Thuderbird  (yes it repeats the same one a few times)
Inbox - AotherEmail2@gmail.com - Mozilla Thuderbird

I have 7 email accounts but for whatever reason it only made 3 windows. What happened to the one window? When I minimize to tray I got 4 of thunderbird icons.

When closing one of them all of the close.

My other windows 7(32 bit not 64 bit) only have one instance.

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2 Answers 2

up vote 2 down vote accepted
  1. Disable "MinimizeToTray Plus" in "Tools -> Add-Ons"
  2. Exit Thunderbird (Make sure the process is not running)
  3. Start Thunderbird. Thunderbird should be running without the MinimizeToTray Plus add-on.
  4. Close one of the MinimizeToTray Plus windows.
  5. Re-enable the "MinimizeToTray Plus" add-on
  6. Exit and restart Thunderbird.


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I think this may have worked. I will accept this answer in a few days. I want to give it a couple days(and do restarts and shutdowns) to make sure it does not come back. –  chobo2 Sep 6 '12 at 18:56
hmmm it starting to come back again(it loads 2 up now). Is there a way to permanently stop multiple copes of thunderbird to run? –  chobo2 Sep 11 '12 at 21:19

It may be a new feature, integrating into the Windows 7 Taskbar better. It looks like each window will show you a mailbox.

Looking at the release notes for 6.0 it shows that they included support for Windows 7 Jumplists.

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Hmm. I wonder why then it does not do all my email account if that is the account. It is missing 3 of them. Any way to merge back all into one? –  chobo2 Sep 23 '11 at 15:47
I also want to add that my other computers(that have the latest version of thunderbird and have windows 7) do not do this. –  chobo2 Oct 19 '11 at 15:49

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