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How to restore a deleted email account

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Verizon sold my email to AOL which uses IMAP instead of POP. Inadvertently I deleted the POP email account and added the IMAP account. After I did this I discovered that all my old email had disappeared.

I read the instructions on Mozillazine on how to restore an email account but was unsuccessful. This is what Mozilla says: Start Thunderbird and create a new mail account, using the same email address and server settings as the account you deleted.

This is what I did. I clicked on Tools, Then I clicked on Account Settings, At the bottom of the left side I clicked on the drop down arrow of Account Actions and I clicked on Add Mail Account. A new window opened and it said "Mail Account Setup. I entered my name as it was in the deleted account and I entered my deleted account email address and password and clicked on "Get a new account" A new window opened and it said "Welcome to Thunderbird" "Would you like a new email address" At the bottom of the window I clicked on "Skip this and use my existing email" because I did not want a different email address. Now I think I am in a loop, The new window says "Mail Account Setup" and it again asks for my name, email address and password. If I click on "Get a new account" I go back to the "Welcome to Thunderbird" "Would you like a new email address" If I choose "Continue" it says "Configuration found in Mozilla ISP database." Then I click on "Done" andHow get this message: "Error Creating Account" Incoming server already exists. My only choice is to click on OK. So what am I doing wrong? Mozilla further says: It will create a new account directory with a numeric suffix. For example, if your old mail account directory was pop.gmail.com it will create a pop-gmail-1.com. Where will I find the new account it created? Use the browse button in Tools -> Account Settings -> Server Settings -> Local directory to specify the old account directory and restart Thunderbird. When I browse in Tools, Account Settings, Server Settings, I get the message: "Account Wizard" An account with this name already exists. Please enter a different account name." If I click on "Manage Identities" I only see one identity which is not the account I deleted. What am I doing wrong?

Verizon sold my email to AOL which uses IMAP instead of POP. Inadvertently I deleted the POP email account and added the IMAP account. After I did this I discovered that all my old email had disappeared. I read the instructions on Mozillazine on how to restore an email account but was unsuccessful. This is what Mozilla says: Start Thunderbird and create a new mail account, using the same email address and server settings as the account you deleted. This is what I did. I clicked on Tools, Then I clicked on Account Settings, At the bottom of the left side I clicked on the drop down arrow of Account Actions and I clicked on Add Mail Account. A new window opened and it said "Mail Account Setup. I entered my name as it was in the deleted account and I entered my deleted account email address and password and clicked on "Get a new account" A new window opened and it said "Welcome to Thunderbird" "Would you like a new email address" At the bottom of the window I clicked on "Skip this and use my existing email" because I did not want a different email address. Now I think I am in a loop, The new window says "Mail Account Setup" and it again asks for my name, email address and password. If I click on "Get a new account" I go back to the "Welcome to Thunderbird" "Would you like a new email address" If I choose "Continue" it says "Configuration found in Mozilla ISP database." Then I click on "Done" andHow get this message: "Error Creating Account" Incoming server already exists. My only choice is to click on OK. So what am I doing wrong? Mozilla further says: It will create a new account directory with a numeric suffix. For example, if your old mail account directory was pop.gmail.com it will create a pop-gmail-1.com. Where will I find the new account it created? Use the browse button in Tools -> Account Settings -> Server Settings -> Local directory to specify the old account directory and restart Thunderbird. When I browse in Tools, Account Settings, Server Settings, I get the message: "Account Wizard" An account with this name already exists. Please enter a different account name." If I click on "Manage Identities" I only see one identity which is not the account I deleted. What am I doing wrong?

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What I guess has happened is that you had your POP account set to remove messages from the server when you read them. So whenever you downloaded and opened a message it was deleted from the Verizon server, which is why it isn't there now. The first step is to discover whether the messages are still on your computer. To do this you can look inside your Thunderbird profile. The instructions here are fairly clear I think: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird If you look at the table some way down that page you will see that your POP mails are stored in folders which are inside the Mail folder in your profile. Have a look at those POP mail folders and see if the names of any of them correspond to the deleted account. If they do, there is a chance that the messages are still on your machine.