Thunderbird Community Forum

Hello everyone,

I am hoping someone can help me recover some EXTREMELY important emails for a legal matter. I was trying to export an entire nested Gmail label (WORK/TNC/TNC DISPUTE) to PDF.

It's a lot of emails spanning from April 2024 that I had painstakingly been going through and labeling to get them ready to print to use as evidence for a work dispute. When faced with the task of having to print all those emails to pdf, one by one, I wanted to chew my own arm off!

I'm convinced there must be another way to bulk print to pdf......and so I went down a few rabbit holes in search of my quick fix.....(I'm not trying to be lazy, I just have very little time left to get this done, and right now I'm losing the will to live if my reality is that I will be busy with this till the end of time.)

I read different threads and questions over the internet and found information that led me to Thunderbird. (Hi, Thunderbird :). I know there are paid apps or extensions that can bulk print to pdf, but I unfortunately don't have the money to pay for them (i.e. the work dispute - salary has been frozen for over 2 years and resignation was denied, so no income and held hostage by my employer - the emails I have lost are literally my future!). Sorry, enough of the why.....

I DID THIS:

So I read that I need to to create a folder in Thunderbird's "Local Folders" with the same name, and simply drag and drop the label from the original label to the local folder label (I did all of this in Thunderbird.

Unfortunately, this went VERY wrong. At first it seemed like it was doing something, but it didn't really do anything that I am aware of.....There was nothing in the local folder I had created and dragged the label to, there was nothing in the original label folder (everything was empty). I died! Then comforted myself with the fact that it's still in GMAIL.....that was the naive, optimistic me talking..... Headed over to Gmail, saw my label name, sigh of relief, clicked on the label name.....DIED 10000000000000 x over.......I continued to cry for the next 4 hours...

.That was the 12th of June.....I'm still trying to get them back.....I have been able to find a few bits of info here and there.....I just don't know how to get them back into Gmail for me to never try be so foolish again!!! (Until someone maybe shows me how to bulk print to PDF?????)....

Here is the current situation and the technical details of what I've found so far:

What happened:

Thunderbird executed a "Move" command instead of a "Copy".

The TNC DISPUTE label is in my Gmail web interface (the emails are not in the label, nor the the Trash and none of my settings anywhere are set to delete permanently etc., on exit).

The Local Folder in Thunderbird shows up on my screen, but it is completely empty.

What I have discovered in the background:

Account Type: IMAP connected to Gmail (*********@gmail.com). (i've replaced my email address name with stars to not put my private email on a public site)

The Local Files: I found the tracking path imap://**********%40gmail.com@imap.gmail.com/WORK/TNC/TNC DISPUTE. I also found the raw file directories containing TNC DISPUTE (no extension) and the TNC DISPUTE.msf index file.

The roadblock I am hitting:

I read that deleting the corrupted .msf index file while Thunderbird is closed will force it to rebuild the index and potentially reveal the emails. However, at first I couldn't safely get into the folder to do this:

When I clicked "Open Folder" from Help > More Troubleshooting Information, Windows threw an error: "Explorer.EXE - There was a problem sending the command to the program."

When I try to bypassed Thunderbird and use the Windows Run dialog with %appdata%\Thunderbird\Profiles, Windows threw another path error and refused to open it.

I ended up reinstalling Thunderbird and it fixed the access profile issue and I can now access where the data gets saved from Thunderbird.....

I just don't know what to do from here to get my (previously local foldered misshaped moved) folder back in my Gmail. (safely - to not corrupt everything or worse....delete it permanently.....)

The details of the missing emails (contents of the label that did copy to the local drive I think):

Directory Contents (as shown in the attached image)

1. TNC DISPUTE.sbd

• Type: File folder

• Date modified: 19 Jun 2026, 00:55

2. msgFilterRules.dat

• Type: DAT file

• Date modified: 12 Jun 2026, 05:49

• Size: 0 KB

3. TNC DISPUTE

• Type: File

• Date modified: 19 Jun 2026, 05:55

• Size: 670,605 KB

4. TNC DISPUTE.msf

• Type: MSF file

• Date modified: 12 Jun 2026, 22:31

• Size: 3 KB

5. Trash

• Type: File

• Date modified: 12 Jun 2026, 05:48

• Size: 0 KB

6. Trash.msf

• Type: MSF file

• Date modified: 12 Jun 2026, 06:27

• Size: 2 KB

7. Unsent Messages

• Type: File

• Date modified: 12 Jun 2026, 05:48

• Size: 0 KB

8. Unsent Messages.msf

• Type: MSF file

• Date modified: 12 Jun 2026, 06:24

• Size: 2 KB

Sorry for the long post, hopefully someone can help me go back in time and have my only issue be searching for ways to bulk print to pdf and not having to try restore the only emails that are actually worth being on there.

TIA xxx Margz

GmailをIMAPで使用。 19000件ほどの「すべてのメール」を、17000件ほど「ローカルにアーカイブ」したところ、他のPCで見られなくなった。 IMAPでは削除扱いだろうが、Gmailでは自動削除オフ&アーカイブするという処理がされているはず。 実際Gmail上ではすべてのメールに残っているし、iPadの Gmailアプリでもすべて見ることができる。

復旧する方法はないか。ローカルにアーカイブしたメールは残っているものもあるが、残っていないものも一部ある。

以下、AIの回答

② 今回の問題の本体

あなたの現象の本質はこれです：

❗ Gmail IMAPの「分割レスポンス」＋クライアントの「完了判定」

⸻

Gmail側

• All Mailを一括で返さない
• チャンク（分割）で返す
• 順序は保証されない

⸻

I have several MBOX files with me and I want to import MBOX files into the Thunderbird email client. I've come across different methods, including manual techniques and third-party tools, but I'm unsure which approach is the most efficient, especially when dealing with multiple or large-sized MBOX files. Some methods also seem complicated for users who are not very technical.

Suggest me any reliable tool for this!

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Hi,

I wanted Thunderbird to stop downloading messages from an old gmail account, but wanted to keep a kind of archive, so what I did was dragged all the account folders (Inbox, Sent, Trash) to Local Folders so that I can continue to reference downloaded emails (the account was using POP, not IMAP).

I'm on Windows 11. Inbox file is basically the same size as it used to be (just now in Local Folders) but Sent, Trash, other subfolders have all almost exactly doubled in filesize compared to what they were before I dragged (moved) the folders to Local Folders. I don't think there are doubles of messages when I look in Local Folders or anything.

Any ideas why the double filesizes? All the .msf filesizes are like, 15% smaller for some reason.

Thanks.

Migrating from a Win 10 laptop to a Win 11 laptop. Need to move the local folders as well but they were assigned a different ID and I can't change the target address in the new installation. Thanks in advance for your help. Rick.

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On the old computer, go to Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Folder and click Open Folder.Exit Thunderbird.Open the Mail folder, then enter the Local Folders directory.Locate the large files without extensions (e.g., Inbox, Archive) and any corresponding folders ending in .sbd.Copy these files to your USB drive.

I do not know where I should put these folders in my new computer so that they will appear under Local Folders in my new computer.

I have downloaded the latest version of Thunderbird. The old computer uses Windows 10 and the new Windows 11. I have put the folders on the desktop of my new computer pending the reply to where I should put them so that they appear in Local Folders.

Thank you for your reply.

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[Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x8000ffff (NS_ERROR_UNEXPECTED) [nsIPrefBranch.getCharPref]" nsresult: "0x8000ffff (NS_ERROR_UNEXPECTED)" location: "JS frame :: chrome://mboximport/content/mboximport/utils.js :: getSubjectForHdr :: line 186" data: no]

Exporting: Folder: Inbox Msg: Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender

getSubjectForHdr@chrome://mboximport/content/mboximport/utils.js:186:26 onAfterStopRequest@chrome://mboximport/content/mboximport/exportTools.js:1809:14 onStopRequest@chrome://mboximport/content/mboximport/exportTools.js:1743:28

Can anyone assist?

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I've run some system / disk checks and no obvious problems.

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Thank you

Brett

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