Pop or Imap account?

If Imap: logon to webmail account via a browser - are emails on server? If no emails on server then an imap account cannot display what does not exist.

It's possible thunderbird could not locate a pop account and created a new one, so it appears empty.

To find out if you have more than one pop account: In Thunderbird Help > Troubleshooting Information Under 'Application Basics' - Half way down -Profile Folder - click on 'Open Folder' A new window opens showing contents of profile name folder. Click on 'Mail' folder to see list of pop accounts. Check each pop account to see which one is the original. You can open an mbox file using Notepad or Notepadd ++ providing it's not too large. The point being you can find out which account has emails.

Now find out name of account you are currently pointing to. Account Settings > Server Settings look bottom right for 'Local directory:' make window wide enough to be able to read all the contents - what does it say after 'Mail' for the pop account name eg: mail.btinternet.com OR mail.btinternet-1.com In other words does it now have a number included in name. This occurs when you have more than one mail account using the same server.

Click on the browse button which opens showing the contents of that pop mail account. You can go up to 'Mail' folder to see a list of pop mail accounts. Select the correct pop mail account and click on 'Select Folder'

Thank you for the response. They are IMAP and POP I understand completely what you say. However, Thunderbird updates the GMAIL folders. So if Thunderbird somehow deleted folder content, then GMAIL server folder content would also be deleted. The GMAIL folders display exactly as the Thunderbird folders as do my POP server folders. Now, here's the rest of the story. I have more than one GMAIL account that I access through Thunderbird. I have two POP accounts that I access through Thunderbird. I have three Outlook accounts that I access through Thunderbird. EVERY folder in EVERY account is EMPTY except for the mail received through Thunderbird AFTER the update. I visited GMAIL, Outlook, and my POP servers and they are synchronized with the Thunderbird folders. EMPTY

I'm trying to find out what you have got stored in Thunderbird.

Pop servers do not synchronise with Pop mail accounts. Pop mail accounts can only download from the server Inbox and if Pop account says to leave copy on server then nothing is deleted by the server.

Please post the following Information so we can see what you have got stored in the current Profile.

In Thunderbird Help > Troubleshooting Information Under 'Application Basics' - Half way down -Profile Folder - click on 'Open Folder' A new window opens showing contents of current profile name folder.

You say you have some pop accounts and some imap accounts. Click on 'Mail' folder to see a list of Pop account please post an image showing that list and make sure it is showing details in columns. columns like Name, Modified date, Type, Size.

Click on 'ImapMail' folder to see list of imap accounts. please post an image showing that list and make sure it is showing details in columns.

Then go up the directory to the Roaming/Thunderbird/'Profiles' folder and post an image showing contents of all listed profiles.

Thank you for your response.

I understand exactly how POP works. I have no reason to leave messages on a POP server. I have trusted Thunderbird for years. All my POP mail is/was on Thunderbird and is now gone.

All my IMAP mail stored on Thunderbird is now gone as well.

The information you ask for is private information and as such I will not furnish it. Further, if the folders were present in the profile, would they not appear in Thunderbird?

I will deal with the situation as best as I can.

I am extremely distressed and disappointed in Thunderbird. I had a couple years of personal correspondence stored and now it is all gone.

I have an offsite backup of my hard drive pre-update. At some point in time, I may restore from the backup or do a system restore from a restore point to see what happens.

Thank you for the responses.

re :The information you ask for is private information and as such I will not furnish it.

I would never ask for private information. You seem to be confused as to what is personal private info and what is common server data used by thousands of people. It's not as private as you seem to think. All people using gmail or outlook will have the same identical server data. What it will tell me is whether there are duplicates and which ones got modified and when.

re :Further, if the folders were present in the profile, would they not appear in Thunderbird?

No. That's the whole point. I have no idea whether you have a pop mail account pointing to a new empty pop mail account whilst the original is still in the profile - just not being accessed. You are under some notion that it's private and wont discuss the issue. If Thunderbird lost track and then created a new profile, it would not have any data, but it doesn't mean to old profile is missing - but again you think whether Thunderbird has suddenly created a new profile is somehow private data. If old profile lost track of a mail account and recreated a duplicate mail account, it would not contain any data, but I could tell if the data was still stored and advise you on how to get it back. I'm not looking at the data - I'm checking file names and dates they are created.

You cannot simply backdate to rescue emails when it comes to an imap account because it will auto delete them on start up because data is apparently not on the server.. You have to get them into the 'Local Folders' mail account first and then 'copy' them back onto the server.

However, I do find this an extreme unique situation. Never, have I come across anyone lose all emails from all mail accounts including Pop. I have seen eg: new pop accounts created so new pop has no mail, but the original pop folder is still in the profile and it's a simple case of repointing back to it. The only thing that can delete a load of files like that is an Anti-Virus product.

Bottom line is this: are you going to let me help you to see if you have: A) a new profile, but old profile is still in tact B) using old profile, but new mail accounts got created and old ones are still in tact but not used

Again, thank you very much! Edit: This reply has taken about an hour and half to compose. Read both parts to the end, please.

Part one: Your comments caused me to think about a new approach. I have a laptop and an HTPC also on my network. The laptop in my shop has Thunderbird installed but not used since early 2022. I only use it to look up and order parts. Without opening Thunderbird, I navigated to the profiles folder and the default profile is the same name as the default profile on my PC.

I also have an HTPC with Thunderbird installed but not used. I navigated to the profiles folder and the default profile on it is the same name as the default profile my PC and the one on my laptop.

Next, I navigated to Google Takeout and downloaded my email. It was sent to me in a .mbox file. I created a folder for this .mbox file. I opened Thunderbird and added this .mbox file and it's folder to my Local Folders. This new folder contains 31,412 files so it seems, at least, I have recovered some of my GMAIL files. It will probably take me a week to sort them out and copy them back into the folders where they belong.

Part two:

Now the really weird part. I, at just the very moment of typing this reply, looked at my POP account in Thunderbird and it now appears that they are all strangely back!! What the heck?

Then I opened my GMAIL account, and now I am seeing emails dated back to 2021!!

This makes absolutely makes no sense to me. I have NOT manipulated the default profile file in any way except to add that .mbox folder to Local Folders through Thunderbird.

So, it seems, the majority of my problem(s) have been strangely solved??

Now I am terrified to open Thunderbird on either of the other two computers.

Out of curiosity, I notice a lot of .msf files in the default profile on the other two computers. What are they and are they readable?

Emails are stored in mbox text files which normally have same name as folder and no extension eg: Inbox Files that have a .msf extension are index files used by Thunderbird eg: Inbox.msf Folders with a .sbd extension eg: Inbox.sbd mean you Inbox has subfolders and those subfolders are in the 'Inbox.sbd' folder. Thunderbird uses the index files for the display of lists etc, but when you select an email to read then it uses that index to locate the full email stored in mbox file. If index file gets out of synch with what is actually contained in mbox file then display of emails can go awol - it does not mean a loss of emails. I'm not surprised the pop account has the emails. Had you posted info I requested, I could have found the account was intact and it probably just needed the index files fixing.

If you have an Anti-Virus product which is allowed to scan your Thunderbird profile folders then I would advise you make Thunderbird profile folder and its contents exempt from scanning/access by any Anti-Virus or clean up program like CCLeaner, WiseCleaner etc. Also note: if you have imap accounts on different computers, anything done in one imap account will effect all imap accounts on all computers.

In addition to AV products that are well known for killing off entire mbox files containing hundreds of emails just because they did not like one email, there are other cases I've come across, such as the following. In the past I helped someone who discovered they had 'Outlook' still running in the background. They did not realise this and it was a pop account which downloaded and deleted everything off the server. In Thunderbird suddenly the imap account had no emails. It caused a temporary panic as you can imagine. Another person decided to use their phone to access gmail and they did not want the 'All Mail' folder - but instead of unsubscribing to see it - they deleted it. Yep you guessed correct - it deleted every email off the server, so when they started up Thunderbird, they watched in horror as each imap folder became empty. You have to be very careful when it comes to imap accounts and always have a full backup kept on an external drive.