There used to be an add-on to recover deleted messages, but there are none I'm aware of for TB 68. As long as you haven't compacted the Inbox, the deleted messages are still there, so you can either copy them from the mbox file, opened in a text editor, or change the X-Mozilla-Status header.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Undelete_a_message

sfhowes said

There used to be an add-on to recover deleted messages, but there are none I'm aware of for TB 68. As long as you haven't compacted the Inbox, the deleted messages are still there, so you can either copy them from the mbox file, opened in a text editor, or change the X-Mozilla-Status header. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Undelete_a_message

That's the method I tried, but looking at the headers, they were all 0000 or 0001 - regardless of if they were still in the inbox or not, so I was unable to find out what was the key to finding the deleted messages.

Is this something that is not longer used?

It seems hard to find current documentation on this subject, but I think deleted messages have 0008 or 0009. If the folder had been compacted, all deleted messages would have been removed from the mbox. Probably best to search for the subject or body text of a new deleted test message and see if it shows a distinct status code.

sfhowes said

It seems hard to find current documentation on this subject, but I think deleted messages have 0008 or 0009. If the folder had been compacted, all deleted messages would have been removed from the mbox. Probably best to search for the subject or body text of a new deleted test message and see if it shows a distinct status code.

Searched the whole document sublime text) and no 0008 or 0009.

From a definitely deleted email: X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000

Annnd I might be losing it - thats the flag on all the emails in here, old and new. Maybe changing them all to 0000 might fix it?

X-Mozilla-Status: information has not changed for I think basically ever. If your file does not have an 008 messages, then the deleted messages have already been removed.

What makes you think they exist in the inbox file? You initial post says they appear to be there. So I am more than a little confused what makes you think so.

The INBOX file is 130MB, and I can see all the deleted emails when I open the file.

If they have a status of 0001 then they are not deleted.

Have you right clicked the folder and selected properties and then the repair button?

It almost sounds as if you are looking at a completely different file.

Are you talking about a POP mail account ? How many POP mail accounts do you have?

In Profile folders 'Mail' folder, you should see 'Local Folders' folder and also all the pop mail account folders. How many pop mail account folders do you see? You might expect to see only one because you only have one pop mail account, but do you see two, maybe similar but with an additional number? Please post an image showing the contents of the 'Mail' folder, so forum can see all listed pop mail accounts.

I have exactly one account, IMAP (would be embarrassing if I left this out and was the key to the whole problem), and the following directory had the INBOX and other files.

C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\qfaivwws.default-release\ImapMail\<account>

I have since nuked that, started over with a fresh profile (while retaining the old data) - this is more for in the future if I run into something like this I want to be able to successfully repair the issue.

So this has all been a waste, because your folder contains no deleted mail and you are complaining about the fact your orphaned file has no deleted messages in it, therefore the instruction you got were not correct. The instructions were correct, but apparently not your understanding. Just because you can not see them in Thunderbird does not mean they are deleted. And in the scenario you have finally offered they will not be.

Use the import export tools to import the stuff to local folders. https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools-ng/?src=ss

Lets be very very clear here. IMAP local copies are really to be considered a cache. they are not an archive or a backup. So when you delete your IMAP account you should delete everything as the new ly set up account will synchronize with the server and delete your old mail if you try and use it anyway. Placing it in local folders is the only "local copy that will be assured of remaining.

Here were the steps:

INBOX -> Select thousands of messages

Press DELETE key, messages go to trash

R-CLICK on trash, select EMPTY_TRASH

I was left with 0 emails in thunderbird(correct), 0 emails on the mail server(correct), but a 130MB INBOX file containing all the deleted emails.

This was a basic IMAP setup, it said "IMAP mail server" at the top, no other options changed.

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I gave the import tool a try and was able to get them into a local folder, ty for that!