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Thunderbird wiped out a local mail folder

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La_Sombra
La_Sombra

I keep my mail (both sent and received) in local mail folders. My server is gmail, and sent mail is put in gmail's sent folder by default. Every few months, I copy those messages to a local folder, and after I back them up, I delete the server copy.

What to my dismay, I discovered today that only the message headers, and not the messages were present in the local folder, though they had been when downloaded. Looking at the file sizes, I found the sent file to be 0 Kb, and sent.msf 255 Kb, when sent should have been around 60 Kb long.

I have been able to restore the messages from backup (whew!), but I have no idea how then sent file was wiped out. I know I did not do it.

Has anyone else had this happen? Is there a preventive measure I should take?

I keep my mail (both sent and received) in local mail folders. My server is gmail, and sent mail is put in gmail's sent folder by default. Every few months, I copy those messages to a local folder, and after I back them up, I delete the server copy. What to my dismay, I discovered today that only the message headers, and not the messages were present in the local folder, though they had been when downloaded. Looking at the file sizes, I found the sent file to be 0 Kb, and sent.msf 255 Kb, when sent should have been around 60 Kb long. I have been able to restore the messages from backup (whew!), but I have no idea how then sent file was wiped out. I know I did not do it. Has anyone else had this happen? Is there a preventive measure I should take?

All Replies (1)

Lin
Lin
  • Top 10 Contributor

I have never had this happen, nor have I heard of it happening to anyone else. I'm sure it HAS happened, but I don't think it's a common problem with Thunderbird.

My first thought is to blame an anti-virus program, which very well could have, rightly or wrongly, detected a virus in the mail fold file. It might have quarantined the file. Can you check your AV, if any, to see its recent action and if it has moved anything into quarantine?

A moral of this story, which I see you already know, is to backup your Profile regularly!

Vra 'n vraag

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