Short background: Critically low on disc space. Windows pointed out a potentially extraneous 8.5gb NS3TMP Thunderbird file. Extensive Googling convinced me it would be s… (read more)
Short background: Critically low on disc space. Windows pointed out a potentially extraneous 8.5gb NS3TMP Thunderbird file. Extensive Googling convinced me it would be safe to delete this file. To be safe (HA!) I first copied it to an external drive just in case things went south. They did.
After the copy, I went back and deleted the NS3TMP file. However, much to my horror, instead of deleting 8.5gb as expected, 30.5gb got deleted. After that, Thunderbird would not start claiming my profile was missing.
I copied the 8.5gb backup file back to its original place. No joy. Same message from Thunderbird.
At this point, I recreated my profile pointing Thunderbird to my Outlook email account.
I could now sign into Thunderbird and T'bird started populating the inbox and sent folders, but only partially. Worse (MUCH worse) my critical Thunderbird local folders were nowhere to be found. I attempted several folder recovery procedures to no avail.
I confess, I do not know how Thunderbird works its magic behind the scenes. Were my local folders part of the surprise 30gb file deletion and thus gone for good? Would the original emails that had been dragged into the various folders still be sitting on Outlook's servers?
As I said, totally self-inflicted but hopeful there's a road to recovery.
Any assistance or consoling words would be much appreciated.