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Emails disappeared upon moving them from one folder to another. Come up in search but cannot open them

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I needed to move a group of emails from my Local Inbox.mbox folder in Thunderbird to the actual Gmail account I have connected to Thunderbird.

I searched for said emails in local folder (inbox.mbox) and found them. I then dragged them into the actual Gmail inbox.

Got a popup that said it couldn't be moved because Thunderbird was in the middle of doing something else. (What, God only knows).

So ok nevermind. I stop new messages from downloading (go "offline") to see if that works.

Then I re-searched the emails. They appear as existing. This time when I try to open them they are completely gone. Like poof nowhere to be found.

OK fine, turn Thunderbird back online. Still gone. Yet show up in my search. When I click "View as list" it comes up with a blank page. HELP! If my client doesn't access these emails he could be sued please for the love of god help me

I needed to move a group of emails from my Local Inbox.mbox folder in Thunderbird to the actual Gmail account I have connected to Thunderbird. I searched for said emails in local folder (inbox.mbox) and found them. I then dragged them into the actual Gmail inbox. Got a popup that said it couldn't be moved because Thunderbird was in the middle of doing something else. (What, God only knows). So ok nevermind. I stop new messages from downloading (go "offline") to see if that works. Then I re-searched the emails. They appear as existing. This time when I try to open them they are completely gone. Like poof nowhere to be found. OK fine, turn Thunderbird back online. Still gone. Yet show up in my search. When I click "View as list" it comes up with a blank page. HELP! If my client doesn't access these emails he could be sued please for the love of god help me
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All Replies (9)

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Let us try repairing that folder ... In the Folders Pane on the Left find the local folder with the missing messages. Right Click on the Icon of that folder (still in the Folders Pane on the Left) and Choose Properties. Click the Repair Folder button then Click OK. (Wait a while for repairs to finish ... ) Look again to see if any messages have returned.

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Well now it's saying not enough disk space to download new messages, which is simply not true and I spent an hour clearing space :(

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Compact your Inbox (and other folders also): https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/compacting-folders

"If a folder goes over a 4 GB size, you will see a warning that "The folder xxx is full, and can't hold any more messages". You must delete some messages or move some messages to another folder to reduce the folder size. (A target folder size of 1-3 GB may be appropriate, depending on your computer's performance capabilities.) "

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All folders have been compacted and I deleted tons of stuff. I closed Thunderbird and restarted, and now the emails in question aren't appearing even in search.

The message I'm getting is "There is not enough disk space to download new messages. Try deleting old mail, emptying the Trash folder, and compacting your mail folders, and then try again."

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I tried to repair files, still no luck!

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How much free space DOES your main drive have, anyway?

Can the messages still be found if you log into GMAIL with a Browser?

What happens if you restart in Safe Mode? https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/safe-mode-thunderbird

Modified by Sea Mac

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Unfortunately moving messages from local account to imap account is known to have issues.

I suggest you only do copies of messages, and then only delete the local original when you have verified that the copy in imap is correct.

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Can’t check the drive at this very moment but not a ton. Even after I cleared tons of space though still not enough. Emails aren’t in gmail. It’s as if they’re in email purgatory

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Yes you’re absolutely right about copying and normally that’s what I do but I was so tired and I tried to drag them to move them like a dummy