Thunderbird Community Forum

I’m on a Mac using the Sequoia OS (not ready to update yet to Tahoe). I recently left Microsoft Outlook, my e-mail client for years, because of all the crashing and when I would update, all the stored e-mails disappeared. I am now using Apple Mail and the export function doesn’t work most of the time. Apple tech support did some things that told me they are automatic backups, but I can’t see them.

I use Thunderbird on an old PC and would like to also use it on my Mac. However, when attempting to import, it starts and finishes in about one second, importing nothing. The files are in .mbox format. What am I doing wrong trying to import these files?

I have an email account with BlueHost, which also hosts my web domain. A couple weeks ago I stopped receiving emails and contacted BlueHost tech support. The agent had no clue why I wasn't receiving email. She said "Can you please click on acocunt actions and remove the account and re-addd it. [sic]" I did that, and I was again able to receive emails. But then all my old emails -- sent and received -- had disappeared. BlueHost was able to restore my Inbox emails back to May 19, but was not able to recover any Sent emails. I have a backup of my Thunderbird directory from April, but would like to recover all of my old emails, which apparently still exist because my current Thunderbird Profiles directory contains files corresponding to deleted email folders. For example, my Inbox had a subfolder -- call it ABC -- that was deleted and is no longer visible in my Inbox, but I can find files ABC (no extension) and ABC.msf in my Inbox.sbd folder. My Sent.sbd folder also contains files ABC and ABC.msf. These folders are in C:\Users\aaa\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\aaa.default\Mail\mail.aaa.com (with "aaa" representing my personal identifiers). mail.aaa.com contains files Inbox, Inbox.msf, Sent, and Sent.msf, which seem to contain my old emails. (Inbox is 132,151 KB and Sent is 289,829 KB, and the file dates are from a couple weeks ago, when I removed and re-added the email account.)

Is there a way that I can recover the old emails?

To be clear, I seriously doubt the problems I am encountering are TB's fault! The problems may be my fault since I've grown older, I've tended (believed) using new versions of software present my mind a BIGGER challenge than using the older software/version I have been successfully using? I'm still using Version115.10.1

After our ISP chose to start using Zimbra Oct. 7, 2025 and their tech support could not assist me in getting TB working the had me remove POP3 settings for TB and change to IMAP with their software.

FINALLY someone helped me get TB working with IMAP. For 3 days grrr. Now the ISP says I need to use their web mail, Zimbra.

So might downloading the current TB version and somehow get the In box, all the folder contnets etc. over - into the new TB help?

I was going to backup everything tonight, now I have little to NO hope, without help!

THANKS & remain WELL plus be SAFE!

Robin

On the 20, of October I was forced to re install Windows 10. Kept my data but I had to re install all my apps. With Thunderbird I follow the same procedure I used with Firefox: After installation I copied the profile folder from my backup and replaced the new one. That worked out well. With Thunderbird, I followed the same procedure, all my emails where there but not my local folders. I am attaching several snapshots to illustrate my steps. Image 1 "local folders now" Image 2 "Profile Folder". (why there are 2 sub-folders)? Image 3 "Mail in the profile folder" Image 4 " List of folders in my Local Folders" The are there, how do I get them back on Thunderbird in the correct place "Local Folders"? Thank you for your help again. Regards Ilio Pieroni

Hello, I’m experiencing an issue when saving email messages as .eml files from Thunderbird.

When I save a message to a network storage folder (for example, a shared drive or NAS), the file seems to save correctly, but when I try to reopen it later, the content is completely blank — the message body is missing.

If I save the same email to my desktop or a local folder, the file opens perfectly and displays all content as expected.

Environment details:

Thunderbird version: 140.3.1esr

Operating system: Windows 11

Network storage type: NAS

Has anyone else experienced this issue? Could this be related to file permissions, encoding, or how Thunderbird handles .eml files on network paths?

Thank you for your help!

Thunderbird v.144.0.1 is importing only the inbox from online outlook.com email account. I've tried right clicking on the account name and selected 'subscribe' to see if the missing folders would appear and this did not work for me Thunderbird searched and when it was done the search box was empty. How do I proceed?

My laptop fried and I have it currently in the computer ER. They are attempting to salvage the information from the hard drive, but it my take a week to complete this process. I have purchased a new laptop and I am close to completing loading just about everything. I have installed Thunderbird, but because I did not have a clean backup I have no local recovery for Thunderbird. Is there by any chance a way that there could be a way to find a recovery file for my Thunderbird? Rebuilding the calendar and the address book is going to be like walking in 4 feet of soft sand at high tide at the beach.

Thank you, Richard Germain

I use Thunderbird to access my Hotmail account. I normally work on my Desktop Windows 11 system but have a laptop Windows 11 which I seldom access email with. When I just tried to update the laptop Thunderbird mail I eventually get the Thunderbird message "Unable to write the email to the mailbox. Make sure the file system allows you write privileges, and you have enough disk space to copy the mailbox". There is enough free space on my drive and it succeeded writing 10522 messages before it came to a halt. I notice that the desktop is at 140.4.0 and the laptop is at 144.0.1 and help says they are both up to date.

Since the Desktop mail is up to date it would seem the quick solution is to replace the mail folder on the laptop with a copy of the mail folder from the desktop. Will this be a problem since they seem to be at different versions. Version 140.4.0 on the Desktop and 144.0.1 on the laptop.

Hi, I am very frustrated not with you, but with AOL. It appears that they did something on their end last evening (10/28/25) that made third party software not work. I have been on the phone with their tech support for over 4 hours and they can not explain, nor fix the fact that I can't get email with Thunderbird and also on my phone with Edison. If I export all of the current information in my current account (tied to POP), using the export feature and put it on my hard drive and call them back, can I then import it to (IMAP)? Their potential suggestion although the account was set in POP format last October when I purchased this new computer.

Please I am at my wits end as I have lost a days work dealing with this.

Thanks, John

I have used Thunderbird since its inception and keep all my mail history since '07 well organized for each year (archived in local folders for older material and many separate subfolders for various email categories (utilities, credit cards, kids school etc.). I originally attempted Apple's Migration program for transfer but lost all my categories in the process. I went back and made sure I had identical versions of Thunderbird 140.4 on each computer (couldn't get the newest version on my old computer). I followed the directions in the Thunderbird support pages to a 'T' to transfer my profile from the old mac to the new one. The only variation in the directions was the inclusion of the profile within the path of <Mac HD-Users-myname-Library-Thunderbird-Profiles> but the location was the same for both computers. When I returned to my old computer the final time I also lost all of it's organization subfolders. Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated, because to have to resort what now looks like 1000's of unread emails in my inbox would be impossible to say the least. Thanks in advance for your time and attention. Sincerely, Jack Milne

I have a backup.bak file.

My computer was re-set and I lost everything.

How can I restore my new downloaded Thunderbird, using this backup.bak file.

Thanks.

Rik

Hi, I've set up TB successfully on a new PC and been using it a while. Then I noticed my local folders archive group of subfolders was missing. I followed some instructions about moving local folders file across from the old to the new version.

Now I see the individual archive folders without the folder group name 'archive'.

Also, there are a couple of other files not visible on the new platform although they were in the original installation local files and were copied across.

I was careful to ensure the same version running on both PCs. Also that TB was closed when copying files across.

Any pointers appreciated!

Hi, Can I have in thunderbird several separate local folders whose data is stored in different directories on my hard disk? if yes, how can I configure this? so far I have one lokal folder (next to many email accounts)... and if yes, can I move one of these folders to a different machine with another thunderbird and import it there?

kind regards Chris

First I beg your indulgence for my approximative enclise ! Some years ago I used thunderbird on an old MacBook Pro getting mails from pop servers. Indeed I can do an export of thèse mails but I have some questions : First : does an export contains my 2 accounts ? Second : how can i see thèse export ? Must I réinstall Thunderbird and import ? Must I keep pop access or can I use imap ? Is there a reader of thèse exports ???? Your expérience will be a good help

I have my gmail account on Thunderbird on Windows 10 and Pop_OS. The Windows has local folders the Pop does not. What happens to the emails on the machine without? I was trying to make room on Windows for a dualboot. I copied everthing to usb then accidentally deleted my user files. 1)How do I recover the local folders from the usb? And/or 2)Do I even need to since I have Thunderbird on Pop? My concern is that, since I set up local folders on Windows, that those emails never got sent to the Pop machine. Otherwise, they all might be there and I just have to locate them which means I don't have to restore the Windows emails.

I am not sure if this is the correct place to ask my question. Apologies if you think it should be somewhere else in Thunderbird Help.

My old W10 machine crashed in September. I bought a W11 machine in October.

A colleague managed to rescue all my data from the W10 to a HDD.

I installed Thunderbird 143.0.1 to the W11 machine. On running the program it found me and my emails. I hoped it would find my wife's emails too. But no luck so far. Both domain names are the same. I've tried adding the details I have for my wife's email as a new account, but the program goes on and on looking with no result, and no end. I have to unplug the power cord to end it.

I've followed advice from the help pages to Find and restore my Profile without opening Thunderbird. In the process I've deleted the Profile on the W11 install, and substituted the Profile from the W10 install. It was around 8GB. So I assumed that Local Folders and my wife's details would show. Neither of these things occur. My account is shown together with recent emails.

What is happening? How can I get my wife's email account to show? How can I find my archive of emails in Local Folders? Any help gratefully accepted. Thunderbird 101 maybe?

Hi, I have used Mozilla Thunderbird to receive my emails from Google's gmail for several years now. I have created many folders in Thunderbird, to store many of my incoming emails in. Recently, I had to purchase a new computer with Windows 11 installed, as I had used Windows 10 for many years on my old, now outdated computer. Is there a way to retrieve my folders from Thunderbird, so that I can have them on my new computer, or are they lost forever? I have my hard drive from my old computer, so would they be on that hard drive somewhere? Thank you.

I'm in the process of transferring emails from my Pop 3 Windows live mail program on a Windows 7 PC to a pop3 Thunderbird program on a Windows 11 PC. But I'm uncertain how to do that in a way that I keep the same file structure in Thunderbird. When I search how to do this on this forum and on a Google search, I only see how to copy them into Thunderbird into a sub folder. If I do this, won't the Pop3 on Thunderbird simply recopy all of the emails from my server, duplicating the same file structure above the subfolder? Is there a way to do this so that the old emails sit in the primary folder position? Thanks.