Hi Titch,

You seem to be asking for help with three things:

1. Recovering deleted mail.
2. Recovering or re-setting your brother-in-law's password.
3. Setting up his account in Thunderbird again.

For #1: If your brother-in-law does not have a back-up copy of his data, it is probably lost for good.There are data recovery services that could try to recover the data. The more your brother-in-law has used his computer since the account deletion, the less successful the recovery will be. There is a slight chance that the deletion of the mail was not synchronized with the server, so the messages or some of them are still on the server. To check, you will want to log in to his mail account on the e-mail service provider's website. But you will need a new password for that, so  … 

For #2: You should contact the e-mail service provider for instructions on re-setting the password. The instructions should also be on their website.

For #3: Setting up the account again is easy. You will want to get the following information from the e-mail service provider for both the incoming and the outgoing server:

Server name Port Connection security Authentication method User name (usually the full e-mail address)

You should find out whether or not third-party e-mail clients such as Thunderbird need an app-specific (or "security" or "application") password to access the mail server. If they do, you'll have to generate one and use it in Thunderbird in place of the account password.

Once you have that information, create a new account in Thunderbird with it. People here can guide you.

I wonder if it would be better for your brother-in-law to use webmail instead of an e-mail client. There's less to manage in webmail.

Rick your help is appreciated, thank you.

I contacted the email service provider some time ago and was told then, that the 'xtra.co.nz' address, will not display with Thunderbird now and to use the webmail path. Your answer has recalled this procedure.

A very grateful senior citizen, Lester

Hi Lester,

Thunderbird should be able to work with those e-mail accounts fine. The server settings are here: https://www.spark.co.nz/help/get-more/xtra/xtra-mail-setup/

Rick, thank you again. I will try this next time I see my brother in law and reply to you. Lester

Lester, after more thinking:

Do you know exactly what and how your brother-in-law deleted data? And what type of account was set up in Thunderbird — IMAP or POP?

Case 1: If he deleted his Thunderbird profile, then everything that was only in his profile is gone, including messages that were stored in local folders. But everything that was also on the server should still be on the server. And you or he can use either webmail or Thunderbird to access them and to send and receive messages.

Case 2: If he deleted messages that were stored in server folders on Thunderbird, then they were deleted from the server too, so you will not be able to access them. However, some e-mail service providers keep back-ups, and some for only a short while. My e-mail service provider keeps a back-up copy of deleted messages for seven days. If the deleted messages are important, ask your e-mail service provider for help.

Your description of what happened makes me think that Case 1 is the situation, so I am optimistic ... unless important messages were stored only in local folders. The best situation would be that the account was set up in Thunderbird as an IMAP account (not POP), and your brother-in-law kept all messages in IMAP folders, not local folders.

In any case, you should be able to set the account up again in Thunderbird, if you think that that would be better than using webmail.

Hello Rick, From memory of reinstalling my b.i.law's email about 3/4 weeks ago, it is POP I think. I called Spark on the day here in New Zealand, who control @xtra.co.nz and was advised that xtra.co.nz will not work with a 3rd party email provider. I downloaded Thunderbird several years ago for David to use, as he did not wish to subscribe to MS and its associated programs. T'bird has worked for him, all these years without issue. I use Thunderbird as well at my home, have done for many years as well. On their advice and with their help I accessed his Email, via Spark's Webmail. I uninstalled and reinstalled T'bird and everything was there and was up until christmas, boxing day. David's email address and its associated folders were not visible when I saw him on the 28th Dec. 2025. Rick, a possibility, his HP desktop will not upgrade from W10 to W11. Do you think this the issue? With his diminished working ability now, he would be unlikely to understand W11 on a new computer. He is 92 and I think has very little time left.

Lester. Thanks again

If I were your brother-in-law, I would just use webmail and not mess with Thunderbird.

But if you want to use Thunderbird again, there are some mysteries. Your brother-in-law used it for years, and you re-installed it for him recently, and it was working fine. With an xtra.co.nz account? But the e-mail service provider told you that e-mail clients such as Thunderbird would not work? Even though every e-mail service provider allows access by e-mail clients and Spark provides instructions on how to use e-mail clients with their accounts (see the link that I shared)?

Thunderbird works fine with Windows 10. That is not the issue.

If you would like help with something specific, would you please ask? It's still not clear to me how the account was deleted and if there were messages that existed only on the computer and now are gone. People here can help you set up the account again, try to recover messages, etc. Let us know what you want to do.

Hello Rick, I have the brother in law's email up and running in Thunderbird. I had to put the password in that was given to us, by Spark, when reinstalling it, on the day, 2 to 3 weeks ago. All set and working, thank you for your help. Lester