Here's my scenario: sometimes TB (2.0.0.24) hangs or crashes, usually because of a nasty piece of e-mail that it chokes on, or an attachment that is over-large. At such times I log on to Web-mail and kill the offending crap. I would also like to be able to start TB offline - anyone know of a way? I tried the command-line switch "-offline" which I read about somewhere but it did not work. Thanks
'-offline' works for me. How are you doing it? (I'm using the ASuite menu, and there is a place specifically to put command line parameters).
Perhaps version 2 doesn't support that command line parameter?
UPDATE: I also tried it from the command prompt and it works for me under ThunderbirdPortable 3.0.4
UPDATE 2: It seems there might be a bug in version 2 that prevents offline mode from working. You might want to search the Mozilla site to confirm.
In case your main reason for wanting to start T-bird in offline mode is because of the choking on automatically downloaded new messages, you could try different "Server Settings" (found in "Account(s) Settings) to avoid this issue.
For instance, I have set up my accounts to "Fetch headers only", which works best for me, with the rest of options unchecked, except "Empty Trash on Exit".