Oh happy day! In a random search I came up with this page and then this one, which tell how to get the Thunderbird E-Mail client to poll all folders for new mail, not just the current. This was my one hang up about using it full time as an email client instead of mutt (which is what I generally use for my personal mail). Since I do all my mail filtering on the server via procmail, having a client that doesn’t look (and therefor never sees) new mail going into your folders really sucks!
To fix this however….
In windows, go to
%APPDATA%\Thunderbird\Profiles\default\randomstring.slt
… mac os/x…
~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/default/randomstring.slt
…. and linux:
~/.thunderbird/default/randomstring.slt
Edit the user.js or prefs.js and add the following line:
// Check for new mail in ALL imap folders
user_pref(“mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new”, true);
The next time you hit Get Mail, your folders will be queried for new mail properly. Oh happy day!