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folders are empty

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John
John
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I know this is kind of long, but this is my first question on this forum and I wanted to give some details.

My mail folders suddenly became empty. After some tinkering my email system is now working but the old files are still missing. Truthfully, I do not know if I fixed it or not, or if it just started working after shutting down and firing up again. People have told me that the folders are probably in there somewhere, but that does not help!

Finally one Mozilla article suggested a possible solution, but it was hard for me to fully understand their details. I said that my problem might be that a wrong setting of "read only" was set in some file directory so Thunderbird could not find the folders, (so it created new ones with the same names) but I DO NOT KNOW WHERE HOW TO CHECK FOR, OR CHANGE THESE SETTINGS, if that is the issue. Also, ALL the folders are empty, but there "seems" to be SEVERAL files that look like directory files to me (named after server) and I do not see how any one of these "sub-directories" could cause ALL my files to be empty.

Or it might be some other problem.

I do not pretend to be as tech savvy as many here might be, so if anyone has a clue as to my problem, I'll probably need details.

Losing all my emails for years would be a pain..yes, I know I should have backed up! (and I did learn how to do that this week) I have used and have be happy with Thunderbird for years, but this serious problem brings to sign up for this help forum. This is my first time here and my first question.

Thanks for any help anyone can give me. I've learned more about Thunderbird in the last two weeks that in the five years before...but not enough so far to solve my problem.

I have an old PC but it works OK. Windows 7-64 bit (waiting to buy new PC, so I do not have to pay for W10 twice...also, do not want to make big changes on this PC until I see if I can find my old emails. Dell XPS 420 Four core 2.5GHz CPU. 500 G HD 4MG RAM Plenty of USB and other ports, but no graphics card.

I know this is kind of long, but this is my first question on this forum and I wanted to give some details. My mail folders suddenly became empty. After some tinkering my email system is now working but the old files are still missing. Truthfully, I do not know if I fixed it or not, or if it just started working after shutting down and firing up again. People have told me that the folders are probably in there somewhere, but that does not help! Finally one Mozilla article suggested a possible solution, but it was hard for me to fully understand their details. I said that my problem might be that a wrong setting of "read only" was set in some file directory so Thunderbird could not find the folders, (so it created new ones with the same names) but I DO NOT KNOW WHERE HOW TO CHECK FOR, OR CHANGE THESE SETTINGS, if that is the issue. Also, ALL the folders are empty, but there "seems" to be SEVERAL files that look like directory files to me (named after server) and I do not see how any one of these "sub-directories" could cause ALL my files to be empty. Or it might be some other problem. I do not pretend to be as tech savvy as many here might be, so if anyone has a clue as to my problem, I'll probably need details. Losing all my emails for years would be a pain..yes, I know I should have backed up! (and I did learn how to do that this week) I have used and have be happy with Thunderbird for years, but this serious problem brings to sign up for this help forum. This is my first time here and my first question. Thanks for any help anyone can give me. I've learned more about Thunderbird in the last two weeks that in the five years before...but not enough so far to solve my problem. I have an old PC but it works OK. Windows 7-64 bit (waiting to buy new PC, so I do not have to pay for W10 twice...also, do not want to make big changes on this PC until I see if I can find my old emails. Dell XPS 420 Four core 2.5GHz CPU. 500 G HD 4MG RAM Plenty of USB and other ports, but no graphics card.