Trying to recover emails in thunderbird (IMAP account).
The server I was on had major crash and I lost all data. They transferred me over to a new server (with new email server settings). Had to create new email accounts, but I just used my old information. On thunderbird (on my desktop) the only thing I changed was the incoming and outgoing server names (in account settings). When I opened thunderbird, all my emails disappeared. I had quite a few subfolders and they all disappeared. I checked with the profiles and there were two (where before there was one) and I see that there is an INBOX file large enough that I'd guess is the original. However I cannot get thunderbird to recognize it. I've followed every online tutorial I could find and nothing. I tried copying all the files in the Inbox.sdb folder and for a fraction of a second as I opened thunderbird, I saw all the subfolders but they disappeared almost immediately and when I looked in the profile folder they were gone again. Currently in the active profile the inbox file is a copy of the original (the larger file) but thunderbird is only showing me emails I received today (no other inbox file in the profile). To be clear, email is working normally at present, I can send and receive w/out problem. Can anyone suggest anything? At this stage I simply want to make sure I can access the old emails in any way I can. Ideally I'd like to import them into the new account/profile, but any other option is valid. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Chosen solution
All right, it's been an adventure so I'll explain what I did to pull these up. Firstly, the files were mirrored in every computer that was using the email. In other words, despite it being IMAP, there were copies of the emails stored in the local computer (NOT the local account, talking about the physical computer). The issue was that because thunderbird couldn't connect to the account (server and password had changed) it kept deciding that the account was pooched and would hide all the emails/subfolders in the inbox. They weren't deleted, I just couldn't see them. What ended up working out for me was creating a NEW account with the exact same information (servers, email, passwords) as the original, shut thunderbird off and then copying the contents of the original profile then going to the profile folder and copy everything into the NEW profile folder (it would overwrite everything with the old data). Opening thunderbird and immediately going "offline" without downloading data allowed me to copy all the emails and subfolders to into a folder in the "local" account. I then created another account with the valid current email, server and such data and copied from the local to the current, valid, IMAP account. It was time consuming and stupid, HOWEVER everything else had major issues. If you don't copy to local while offline, you can transfer some stuff, but eventually, thunderbird would assume the account was messed and all the files would disappear. Also, if working online it kept trying to sync while copying and it kept causing dropped files and sometimes crashes. So overally I suggest that if you find yourself in such a similar situation, copy to local then copy again to IMAP. Seemed to work the best. Hope this helps someone in the same boat as me.
Ler a resposta no contexto 👍 0All Replies (4)
IMAP - that means the server holds all the emails, you 'view' them from Thunderbird but they are on the server. So the provider needs to put your backed up emails onto the new server. Then you should check they really are there using webmail before connecting Thunderbird. If you had saved any emails to Local Folders in Thunderbird, those would not be on the online server but saved in your computer's Thunderbird Profile. They can be copied into a new profile, or the original profile connected to the new server by changing account settings. But - first be sure the provider has restored all your online email.
Individual sbd folders will not help, they don't really contain anything, they are kind of directory structure markers if you are using IMAP. Files with no extension (actually mbox files) is where your offline (POP and Local Folders) emails are stored. That is, if you manually created subfolders within Local Folders in Thunderbird, and moved emails into them so they no longer appear on the online mail server, that is what you would find in the Thunderbird Profile - Mail - your account - . Also if you were on POP, and had older emails saved from then. IMAP mail typically is not stored on your own computer at all - headers are downloaded from the mail server but the content is not downloaded until you choose to open/save it. So, if it doesn't exist on the online server, the messages can't download. Re-adding the directory structure sbd, but then connecting and syncing with an empty account online would delete the empty folders. Go online, see if your account has content, if it does it should have your folder structure there.
Chosen Solution
All right, it's been an adventure so I'll explain what I did to pull these up. Firstly, the files were mirrored in every computer that was using the email. In other words, despite it being IMAP, there were copies of the emails stored in the local computer (NOT the local account, talking about the physical computer). The issue was that because thunderbird couldn't connect to the account (server and password had changed) it kept deciding that the account was pooched and would hide all the emails/subfolders in the inbox. They weren't deleted, I just couldn't see them. What ended up working out for me was creating a NEW account with the exact same information (servers, email, passwords) as the original, shut thunderbird off and then copying the contents of the original profile then going to the profile folder and copy everything into the NEW profile folder (it would overwrite everything with the old data). Opening thunderbird and immediately going "offline" without downloading data allowed me to copy all the emails and subfolders to into a folder in the "local" account. I then created another account with the valid current email, server and such data and copied from the local to the current, valid, IMAP account. It was time consuming and stupid, HOWEVER everything else had major issues. If you don't copy to local while offline, you can transfer some stuff, but eventually, thunderbird would assume the account was messed and all the files would disappear. Also, if working online it kept trying to sync while copying and it kept causing dropped files and sometimes crashes. So overally I suggest that if you find yourself in such a similar situation, copy to local then copy again to IMAP. Seemed to work the best. Hope this helps someone in the same boat as me.