Thunderbird Community Forum

Hello Smart People:

I have literally decades of emails from a prior job that I want to detach from T-bird without deleting them. I hope to drastically reduce the size of "Local Folders" so I can more easily transport my email from machine to machine.

Archiving won't work in this case because it retains the mail, when I really want it removed, but accessible again later.

How can I do this?

Sincerely, Bob

Back when W110 went to w11 I got a new computer and was given great directions here to back up my TB profile by searching %appdata% and copy the thunderbird folder to external source. That file is 198 MB. I do this every month now ..It is my understanding it saves my profile and all emails including local ones. Now in Aug 2026 when i copy this file, I am getting an error a file is too long and have no choice but to skip that file..I will attach a pic of the error. Is this back up ok to use or is it corrupt because of the error?

I also found in TB help there is an export feature in TB to a zip file but that .zip is huge..I did one just in case. I think you just open TB>select hamburger menu three lines on top right>tools>export. I did that back up/export also today and that is a .zip file folder that is less properties like 175 MB.

So now which way is the correct way to keep a safe copy of my TB in case my computer crashes or i have to put on another pc?

Is it possible to import to, or display email messages, in Thunderbird, which are stored in a Becky Internet Mail program folder (https://www.rimarts.co.jp/becky.htm), please?

Thanks

Hi everyone,

I ran into a major accidental data loss issue in Thunderbird and I'm hoping someone can guide me on how to safely recover the messages.

What happened:

I attempted to copy a large batch of old emails from my Yahoo IMAP account into local folders.

Thunderbird initially moved them because I accidentally pressed "Move-to" Realizing they were moved instead of copied, I pressed Ctrl + Z to undo that action after all those emails were moved from my inbox to my local folder. That undo command synced back through IMAP and wiped those messages from both the local view and the server.

Those emails just disappeared and I want to get them back. It's been 6 days. How to recover them?

I am trying to migrate from Microsoft Outlook 2021 to Mozilla Thunderbird. I have successfully imported the email from a number of different email accounts. I would now like to import the archived emails held in a number of PST files. The import tool would seem to be what is required, but it does not seem to allow me to select the PST files that I wish to import. I am concerned that it will try to import all email messages from my Outlook 2021. Is there a way of restricting it to just individual PST files?

I have an email address and I want to migrate those emails to a gmail address. The problem is that I have around 2300 emails. I'm copying about 200 emails to the gmail address. The problem is that is taking too long and it's not copying all of them.

What if I copy all of emails wait to sycronize it and then copy it again? It will work? Or is there another way to do that?

I was attempting to use Thunderbird Restore Tool to merge multiple Thunderbird profiles. Before I started, I copied the existing Thunderbird profile to a safe location where it has remained undisturbed. The Thunderbird Restore Tool did not produce the desired results, but that is a story for another day. I tried copying the saved profile back to C:\User\Tom Hayden\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles. I then started Thunderbird. It returned something very close to "Your profile file is inaccessible or corrupted". After some research, I edited the profiles.ini to point to the old profile file. Thunderbird would not start. I tried multiple iterations of thunderbird - p to run the profile manager. I was, eventually, able to get thunderbird to start and read the most recent e-mails from the server. However, it would not load any of the old e-mails from the old profile. I went to the profile thunderbird is currently using. Under ...\thunderbird\profile\pd785tbj.Default_User\Mail I found Local Folders-1 and pop3.airmail.net. Under pop3.airmail.net I can see the directory structure I used for my old e-mail. Everything appears to be present and in place. No matter what I do, Thunderbird will not read/load those e-mails. There is also an ImapMail directory with mail.airmail.net. Under it is a directory structure that appears to be what is actually showing up in Thunderbird. How do I restore/reload/recover/whatever the old e-mails in pop3.airmail.net? Please make your answer as explicit as possible.

I have been trying to archive my 25 years of Yahoo mail before they delete most of it. I thought I had it done. Now I have had to start again. Did you know that setting Thunderbird to ISAM download all your emails will only get the first 10,000 of any folder with more than that in it? Yes indeed, so it seems. We have to set the yahoo download server to the 'export' server. prefix the existing name with 'export'.

)

I am locked out of my yahoo accounts now. And the attempts I made earlier to delete stuff to make room have deleted stuff that never got downloaded/archived because from a folder with more than 10,000. That's how it goes. Just thought I'd warn anyone who might be as unknowing as I was. I took advice to the contrary and believed it.

My ISP changed us to another mail provider. So I created a new version of my existing email with different server settings, then restored my email backup. I did this all offline and it was successful. All my emails and folders were there.

Next, I went online to download new email, after which all of the messages and folders from the backup were removed (overwritten). I've tried repeating the process by removing the new account and reinstalling it, but I can't get my old emails and folders back. This is a significant problem because I have over a decade of financial and legal emails in the backup. I have tried a number of the solutions posted in the Community but have not been successful in getting my emails back. I'm using Windows 10 and Thunderbird 115.10.1.

Any insights are most appreciated.

I recently (unwisely) refreshed my WIndows 10. On restarting I had to reinstal Thunderbird. I thought I'd be able to recover all my old emails by importing the old profile from Windows.old, but I've had some problems: 1) I can't identify which profile was the most recent. 2) The info from each profile has remained on my Thunderbird, although I though it would be overwritten by the next profile I imported. 3) I've tried importing them one by one, but none of the old profiles is the one I was looking for, with all my sub folders. I need the old emails for work, invoicing and tax calculation purposes. I've now been sitting in front of my computer for a couple of days in a cold sweat, the desperation building quietly. Can anybody help?

Hi, It worked flawlessly in the previous version. In version 153.0.2esr (64-bit), I can't drag and drop messages to a folder (e.g., Desktop). Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this?

So, I recently got rid of Spectrum as my internet & email provider. I have used the Archive function to archive all the emails from that account but still need to be able to access them after I remove the spectrum email account from Thunderbird. Does Archiving the emails keep them accessible or do I need to so something else. Further info, all of my emails are downloaded to thunderbird and not kept on the server, so they are physically on my computer inside thunderbird program