From user feedback, I wonder if they've learned how to prevent Thunderbird from creating an empty "thunderbird" folder in my home directory yet.
Hmm strange, I have never had a thunderbird folder in my home dir. I use thunderbird on Mac, Windows and Linux (Ubuntu).
Is this is the snap version of tb? If so it has restricted file access.
Maybe try the .deb version? (maybe need to back up your data in ~/snap/thunderbird/
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If only there was a way to edit the source code, and recompile it yourself.
Oh well, no software is perfect.
This is a known issue (tracked at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2007074, as mentioned by a previous comment). A fix has landed in Thunderbird Daily a couple of weeks ago, and should be released in Thunderbird 154 which comes out next month.