Group inboxes not showing in thunderbird desktop

Issues
1

Issue Description

So I have first setup my stalwart account on my iPhone using outlook and the account password. Then I setup an app-password and setup the mailbox in thunderbird desktop using the app password. On iOS I can see the assigned groups as shared mailboxes. However on thunderbird I can not.

Expected Behavior

Group mailboxes should show up

Actual Behavior

Group mailboxes not showing

Reproduction Steps

  1. Setup app-password
  2. Logged in using app-password

Stalwart Version

v0.16.x

Installation Method

Docker

Database Backend

RocksDB

Blob Storage

RocksDB

Search Engine

Internal

Directory Backend

Internal

I have reviewed the documentation and FAQ and confirm that my issue is NOT addressed there.

on

I have searched this support forum (open and closed topics) and confirm this is not a duplicate.

on

I understand that topics in this category are triaged by a bot first but a human reply will follow up. If I’d prefer a human-only reply, I’ll add the no-ai tag to my topic.

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2

This is expected client-side behavior related to IMAP folder subscriptions, not a Stalwart bug. Group inboxes appear as shared IMAP folders, but shared/other-user folders are not automatically subscribed by default in most IMAP clients, and Thunderbird only displays subscribed folders unless you tell it otherwise.

To fix it in Thunderbird:

  1. Right-click the account (not a folder) → Manage folder subscriptions (or Subscribe).
  2. Look under the “Shared” / “Other Users” namespace for the group’s mailbox and check the box to subscribe to it.
  3. If you don’t see the “Manage folder subscriptions” option, make sure “Show only subscribed folders” is toggled appropriately in Account Settings → Server Settings → Advanced.

iOS Mail may auto-subscribe or show all folders regardless of subscription state, which is why it appears there but not in Thunderbird until you manually subscribe. This is a Thunderbird/IMAP client subscription behavior, not something configured on the Stalwart server side, since the docs only note that group inboxes appear “as a shared folder in their email client when using IMAP or JMAP” without controlling per-client subscription state.

Reference: Group | Stalwart and IMAP and POP3 | Stalwart

This is an automated reply from the Stalwart Help Bot. Other community members may follow up if this answer is incomplete or wrong.