How to resurrect old folders and file
Hi There
I had a computer crash 4 months ago. I am accessing emails from gmail and stupidly about 3 months before my computer crash, I went and deleted thousands of emails from gmail. I was not worried at the time, as they were all backed up on my computer.
I managed to save the data from my computer. I have found where Thunderbird stores files and found the file(s) I want. I tried to just move the two files called "Foldername" and "Foldername.msf" into the relevant folder where the emails are stored on my computer called (names changed to protect innocent) "C:\Users\myname\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\folder.default\ImapMail\imap.gmail.com\INBOX.sbd"
However, when restarted Thunderbird, it threw up an error saying the folder no longer exists in gmail (it doesn't) and removed the files / folders. The file without the ".msf" extension is 42Mb in size, so there must be something in there. Why can I not resurrect the old emails?
Any help? Thanks Brett
پاسخها (2)
I think your difficulty comes from the fact that your Gmail account on Thunderbird is synchronised with your Gmail account on the internet. So if you simply copy messages into it on Thunderbird, it detects that they don't exist on the internet and removes them, as you have found. If I were in your shoes I'd try to add them first to the Local Folders account in Thunderbird. Those folders aren't synchronised, by design, so it's more likely to accept them. Then I would create new empty folders in Gmail, with the same names, and finally try to copy the messages from Local Folders. Others may be able to give more knowledgeable advice!
I agree with amanchesterman. Imap mail accounts see a remote view of what is on the server, there is synchronising between the mail account folders making sure the server and your copy in Thunderbird are the same. Adding files into a thunderbird profile will throw up that error because there is no such folder of same name on the server to synchronise it's contents.