What happens if you turn off automatic compact in Settings, and restart Thunderbird?

doesnt make any difference. I have 2 emails set up in thunderbird. It's only affected one of these and just the inbox in this. Very odd.

Check that there aren't any filters under View/Threads or Quick Filter that e.g. display only unread mail.

these are okay. i think the inbox may have been deleted at the server. Like i said the folders i have still have their messages in them.

Suddenly, my sent boxes on my 8 emails are empty. Each account shows the number of sent emails associated with the address, but none show any individual emails. Am using 138.0b3 (64-bit) Beta. How do I restore my sent emails?

think problem occurred when Thunderbird forced an update the other day. I also had a problem with earthlink not transferring webmail messages to Thunderbird. Earthlink support checked all setting, had me close the computer completely and then restart. This fixed the Earthlink problem but then saw all my inbox emails were gone. No loss in my Sent folder or subfolders.

Another problem with disappearing emails the other day I tried to move a folder in the subfolder tree and it completely disappeared. Checked all other folders to see if it got moved into another folder and cannot find it at all. This all feels like something unstable in the program but cannot seem to figure out how to fix it.

This helped me. The problem with my inbox disappearing may have been related to a Thunderbird update.

For an account with att.com:

/skip past all the lines that don't mention a key.

   Access your AT&T Mail using your favorite email apps
   Synchronize other account info, such as your calendar and contacts, to your email app.

Create a secure mail key

It’s easy to create a secure mail key from your mobile device, tablet, or computer. Have your User ID and password ready to sign in to myAT&T.

   Go to your myAT&T Profile. Sign in, if asked.
   Scroll to My linked accounts, select the email account that needs a secure mail key.
   Scroll to Secure mail key, select Manage secure mail key.
   Choose the email address that you’d like to use, if you have more than one.
   Select Add secure mail key. Enter a nickname for the secure mail key to make it easy to recognize.
   Choose Create secure mail key.
   Select Copy secure mail key to clipboard. Make a note of your secure mail key for further updates.
       For security purposes, the secure mail key only displays until you select OK.
       If you lose or forget the secure mail key, you can always create new secure mail keys.
   Select OK.
   Go to your preferred email app, replace the existing password with your secure mail key. For an IMAP account, delete the existing password for both the IMAP and SMTP servers. Replace them with your secure mail key.

Good to know: Each device you use to access your email will have its own secure mail key. Additional secure mail key notes

Access your AT&T email account without an OAuth mail app or secure mail key

You can always read and manage your email through a Web browser at currently.com.

A secure mail key won’t affect your AT&T email password

You’ll still use the same password for your AT&T Mail account in OAuth-compatible apps, myAT&T, and other AT&T products like currently.com and webmail. When you change your AT&T email password, you won’t need to get a new secure mail key.

Keep your secure mail key as long as you like

Secure mail keys never expire.

Create a new secure mail key for a blocked or locked account

For safety reasons, we delete secure mail keys whenever we have to lock or block your account. If that happens, you’ll have to create a new secure mail key for each AT&T Mail account.

Give your secure mail key a nickname

Create a nickname to identify your secure mail key, especially if you have more than one. It’s much easier to recognize a nickname, like Ari’s email or Kelly’s email, than the 16 random characters you entered when setting up your email. Last updated: March 12, 2025

If it shows a key, you can delete it and then make a new one. A few minutes after that my 500 messages from a week ago started to download to my inbox.

Happy again.

Bill