Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How can I recover mail messages from a deleted account?

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 30 views
  • Last reply by Arioch IV

more options

I am moving my domain to a new hosting service, and I wanted to get my email messages off the old server before making the change to the new one. A was using the previous host's web mail client, so I set up Thunderbird and downloaded all of the existing messages. Then, after I had changed the domain to point to the new server, I created a new email account in Thunderbird and connected to the new server. It wouldn't let me exit the screen while two accounts had the same name, so I deleted the old account, but I unchecked the box that said it would remove emails, figuring that would do what I wanted. Of course, it didn't.

I now know from research (which I should have done beforehand) that I could have copied the messages into a different directory, but, here we are. Mea culpa.

Is there any way to retrieve these messages? I can see that there's a fairly large file under Thunderbird\Profiles\ called "global-messages-db.sqlite" (102+ MB), which does appear to have message data in it. And if there is no way to retrieve them, what was the point of the option to keep them in the dialog to delete the messages?

I am moving my domain to a new hosting service, and I wanted to get my email messages off the old server before making the change to the new one. A was using the previous host's web mail client, so I set up Thunderbird and downloaded all of the existing messages. Then, after I had changed the domain to point to the new server, I created a new email account in Thunderbird and connected to the new server. It wouldn't let me exit the screen while two accounts had the same name, so I deleted the old account, but I unchecked the box that said it would remove emails, figuring that would do what I wanted. Of course, it didn't. I now know from research (which I should have done beforehand) that I could have copied the messages into a different directory, but, here we are. Mea culpa. Is there any way to retrieve these messages? I can see that there's a fairly large file under Thunderbird\Profiles\ called "global-messages-db.sqlite" (102+ MB), which does appear to have message data in it. And if there is no way to retrieve them, what was the point of the option to keep them in the dialog to delete the messages?

Chosen solution

If the mail from the deleted account is still available, it will be in the Mail/<popserver> or ImapMail/<imapserver> subfolder of the profile folder, in the form of an mbox file - a file with no extension, named after a folder, e.g. Inbox. Copy the mbox files into Mail/Local Folders, with TB closed. Restart TB and find the folders under Local Folders in the Folder Pane.

The sqlite file is just an index used by the Global Search function.

Read this answer in context 👍 1

All Replies (2)

more options

Chosen Solution

If the mail from the deleted account is still available, it will be in the Mail/<popserver> or ImapMail/<imapserver> subfolder of the profile folder, in the form of an mbox file - a file with no extension, named after a folder, e.g. Inbox. Copy the mbox files into Mail/Local Folders, with TB closed. Restart TB and find the folders under Local Folders in the Folder Pane.

The sqlite file is just an index used by the Global Search function.

more options

Thanks very much!