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import windows mail emails from a broken vista pc

  • 8 replies
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by thrawgoon

My Vista 32 bit machine died - power, motherboard etc. I have Acronis full disk backups on an external disk and daily Acronis Cloud backups of my 'User' folders. What I don't have is a working Windows Mail systems to export my old emails. When I take up Thunderbird, is there any way I can get these old emails backup, even if it means going from one place to another to get them. As a temporary measure, I am now on a 64 bit Windows 7 system. If anyone can help but needs more information, let me know. Thanks.

My Vista 32 bit machine died - power, motherboard etc. I have Acronis full disk backups on an external disk and daily Acronis Cloud backups of my 'User' folders. What I don't have is a working Windows Mail systems to export my old emails. When I take up Thunderbird, is there any way I can get these old emails backup, even if it means going from one place to another to get them. As a temporary measure, I am now on a 64 bit Windows 7 system. If anyone can help but needs more information, let me know. Thanks.

Chosen solution

If your dragging and dropping the mail will end up in whatever folder you \drop them into.

A better way would be to use the import export tools add-on if you have many nested folders as it will import a folder and it's sub folders. The add-on will recreate your folder structure. It you choose to import messages from a folder and it's sub folders.

See https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/

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All Replies (8)

Which of the many versions of windows mail was it. Unbelievably Microsoft really changed things version to version.

if it was 2012, your best to reinstall and try and import your old mail from the mai.msmessagestore file (I think it is called.

Other versions store mail in C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WIndow s Live Mail\ in individual EML files that you can drag and drop into Thunderbird.

The original VIsta system dated from 2007. The messages were, I am sure, in the AppData Windows Mail folder. Once I get them restored from the backups to somewhere, I will see how drag and drop works although there are a lot of them. Can I do this by sub folder?

CTRL+A to select all is your friend.

Right, I have installed TBird and will set up my email address. My original, and now defunct, email systems was Windows Mail not Windows Live Mail. Does this change the original response?. I have found all, or at least most, of the EML files in my backups both on the external disk and online backups and will look at the TBird instruction notes to sort out copying them in. Thanks

ps - the old Vista system dated from 2007 so all the emails were/are in ......Windows Mail/Local Folders.

I have restore all, or most, of my emails in EML format and restore a few of the smaller ones. I note that, for a single folder, each email ends up in my Inbox. If the folder has sub folders, I get these with the individual emails under them. Some of my folders contain a large number of emails. Can I create, in the folder that contains all of the restores, a few new 'holding' folders, include some of the large, restored ones, and then mark the holding ones plus sub directories as the ones I want to restore? If I understand the process, this will give me a few folders and stop me having to deal with a vast number of individual emails in my Inbox. I have read a few of the Support pages regarding emails and restores and appreciate there are better ways of doing things. At the moment, all I want to do is get back what I had before the crash. Once done, I will sort out a more manageable email setup.

Chosen Solution

If your dragging and dropping the mail will end up in whatever folder you \drop them into.

A better way would be to use the import export tools add-on if you have many nested folders as it will import a folder and it's sub folders. The add-on will recreate your folder structure. It you choose to import messages from a folder and it's sub folders.

See https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/

Many thanks