Thunderbird does not actually download email until email is opened
I have an organizational Microsoft Exchange account that I will shortly lose access to so am trying to archive all my email & attachments from it. For this purpose I installed Thunderbird & connected it to the account using exchange sync. I followed every method I could to try to get Thunderbird to download all the mail, such as selecting each folder as download for offline use. The folders appear populated by email messages. Despite this, when I simulate going offline by cutting the computer's wi-fi connection, Thunderbird is unable to actually open any of the "downloaded" mail. Instead, it shows a blank screen and cycles with the "loading" message in the bottom left corner. Only emails I had previously actually opened will load properly when offline.
The Microsoft Exchange account says that the account takes around 9 GB of storage with attachments. The local Thunderbird folder is only a few MB in size. How can I ensure Thunderbird *actually* downloads the mail and all its attachments so they will be available for offline use or equivalently, available when I lose connection to the mail account? Thank you.
All Replies (6)
- first, make sure that the synchronization&storage syncs all mail - click file>offline>download to ensure all content is downloaded, not just headers . check that messages appear complete. - once downloaded, exit thunderbird and copy the message folders in the imapmail\<accountname> folder to Local Storage - restart thunderbird and verify that the copied folders are complete - to be fully safe, exit thunderbird (IMPORTANT STEP) and then copy your Local Folders folders to other folders or to external media.
The above steps are to isolate the copied messages from the account. always COPY, never MOVE.
Thank you, David. Unfortunately that did not work. For reference I am using Thunderbird 141.0 on macOS with Exchange for synchronization method. I right-clicked the account on the left sidebar > Settings > Disk Space > then checked "Keep messages in all folders for this account on this computer". Unfortunately there is no way to keep this box checked; every time I click to a different screen then come back, the box is again unchecked. Clicking the "Advanced..." or "Select newsgroups for offline use..." button pops up a modal box showing no folders or newsgroups, which is odd because the folders are found in the main account screen just fine.
If I skip this step and then go to File > Offline > Download/Sync Now... then click the various things and select "OK", nothing seems to actually get downloaded.
Ok , skip to the next steps of exiting thunderbird and copying to local folders. let me know what you see.
I don't understand those instructions, sorry. Also I am using Exchange for sync instead of IMAP. I tried IMAP previously but it could not find any folders.
Ok, assuming you use windows, all data is downloaded to windows files in the profile. to get there, click help>troubleshootinginformation and scroll down left side to 'profile folder' and click 'open folder' You are now in the profile. Exit Thunderbird to avoid any corruption. Your account is in the Imapmail folder. Inside the account, you may see inbox, inbox.msf, sent, sent.msf, etc. Ignore the msf entries. Assuming you have full messages in the folders, COPY the folders to the Mail\Local Folders folder (The Mail folder is located in same folder as the imapmail folder.) Now, restart thunderbird and see if the folders you copied are visible in the Local Folders folder. Check that all the messages are there, not just headers. If they are there, you are successful. I suggest creating a full backup of the profile with windows file explorer. DO NOT use the Thunderbird export feature.
Unfortunately none of this was useful, sorry. The problem is that I do *not* have full messages downloaded, and want to have them downloaded. If they were downloaded it would be easy to copy the local files around. I gave up and switched to using Microsoft Outlook.
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