Importing mail
My mail is hosted on Hostpresto. Yesterday 'someone' (it wasn't me. I was in bed) gained access to my cPanel and email and deleted my only email address, then installed their own. All my mail gone. I was stupid though - I opened another email address with the same name as the old one and started Thunderbird on the pc. Of course, it synchronised to the empty folders!
Luckily I have another instance of TB running on another machine and it's all there - I am not internet connected there!
How do I bring the folders containing all the old mail from the 'safe' machine's appdata/roaming/thunderbird location to what will be my 'working machine' without it immediately synching to the server and deleting it all?
Thanks Andy
Mafitar da aka zaɓa
- locate the message folders in profile of machine with thunderbird not running - copy the folders, using windows file explorer, such as inbox, sent, etc to external media (.msf files not needed) - on PC with account to be used, start thunderbird and install the importexport addon - create a local folder on PC for each message folder to be imported - highlight a folder and rightclick and select importexport and import mbox and select one of the files - repeat for each desired folder - now, create a manuall-run filter to COPY the contents from local 'inbox' to the IMAP account inbox - repeat for each folder. - assuming all now works, you can delete the local folders.
Karanta wannan amsa a matsayinta 👍 0All Replies (4)
Zaɓi Mafita
- locate the message folders in profile of machine with thunderbird not running - copy the folders, using windows file explorer, such as inbox, sent, etc to external media (.msf files not needed) - on PC with account to be used, start thunderbird and install the importexport addon - create a local folder on PC for each message folder to be imported - highlight a folder and rightclick and select importexport and import mbox and select one of the files - repeat for each desired folder - now, create a manuall-run filter to COPY the contents from local 'inbox' to the IMAP account inbox - repeat for each folder. - assuming all now works, you can delete the local folders.
Basically, import mbox files from the 'safe' machine's appdata/roaming/Thunderbird/Profiles/<profile name>/ImapMail/<mail account name> folder into a new folder in the 'Local Folders' mail account.
mbox files have same name as folders you see in folder pane, but they have no extension and contain emails.
Then in batches copy emails from 'Local Folders' account to IMAP account folders to get them uploaded to server. Do it in batches to ensure upload is done correctly. Not sure how much you can upload. Some servers limit the amount in size eg: 500MB per day.
This addon is good for importing mbox files: ImportExportTools NG https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools-ng/
Or if you already put a copy of the 'safe' machine's appdata/roaming/Thunderbird folder onto working computer desktop then you could do this:
- Create folder in 'Local Folders' mail account and select it
- Tools > Import
- Select 'import from another thunderbird installation'
- Select 'choose a profile folder'
- Then you can locate the copied over profile name folder and click on 'Select Folder'
- Finally you can choose just the option 'Mail Messages'
This should import all mail messages from the copied over profile into 'Local Folders' mail account.
You may need to restart Thunderbird
An gyara daga Toad-Hall
Thank you Toad-Hall and David, all working again now. I am a little wiser and a great deal more careful.
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