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Restoring Message Filters

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  • Last reply by sfhowes

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On my Mac (MacOS 13.1.2 Ventura) Thunderbird won't open properly after a restart. I've tried copying the Profiles from a backup location, to no avail. I've tried re-installing Thunderbird from the ground up, which is a nuisance but I can do it ..

The problem is the Message Filters which I don't want to lose. They exist in the folder for each mail account as a DAT file and I can put them into those locations but I can't differentiate one email folder from another. I don't see anything in the DAT file that indicates which mail account it is associated with.

Help please ?

On my Mac (MacOS 13.1.2 Ventura) Thunderbird won't open properly after a restart. I've tried copying the Profiles from a backup location, to no avail. I've tried re-installing Thunderbird from the ground up, which is a nuisance but I can do it .. The problem is the Message Filters which I don't want to lose. They exist in the folder for each mail account as a DAT file and I can put them into those locations but I can't differentiate one email folder from another. I don't see anything in the DAT file that indicates which mail account it is associated with. Help please ?

All Replies (3)

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Filters are stored in msgFilterRules.dat in each account's subfolder of the profile, so that indicates which account the filters are associated with. An account's subfolder looks like, e.g. ImapMail/imap.gmail.com. If you have several accounts with the same server, it's possible to see which subfolder is associated with an account by looking at the Local Directory in Account Settings, Server Settings, for each account.

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This advice was very helpful, however unfortunately it didn't work for me. THANK YOU!

You're correct about referring to the Local Directory in the settings of each server, but unfortunately for me I have several GMAIL accounts and the appended numbers. ( -1, -2, -3, etc) must refer to the sequence in which the accounts were added.

There is only one that really matters to me. I'm going to try swapping the DAT files one at a time.

I wonder: do I need to restart Thunderbird each time I modify the contents of the folder where the DAT files reside?

Modified by Dennis Burnham

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If you swap dat files or do any other editing of the profile folder, TB must be closed, so it will be restarted anyway to see the effects of the editing.