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emails missing after moving the folder

DavidGG replied
koenwentink

I moved my work email (sub)folders within Thunderbird after adding a new work email account (Pop3). After that I found that some of the subfolders are missing alltogether and some of them are empty, the emails that were in that folder are not there anymore, and nor in the original folder where it was first located. When showing the size of the folder it shows e.g. 14.7 MB even though it sais "0" messages. It looks like the messages are still there but they are not showing.

And now every time I try to move a message into a subfolder, or delete a message, I am getting an error message about some error writing to some specific folder failing when compacting, and whether there is sufficient disc space.

But there is still 150 GB of free space on the C drive

The I have to shut down Thunderbird and restart it because non of the folders show any messages anymore.

Any idea what is happening here ?

I moved my work email (sub)folders within Thunderbird after adding a new work email account (Pop3). After that I found that some of the subfolders are missing alltogether and some of them are empty, the emails that were in that folder are not there anymore, and nor in the original folder where it was first located. When showing the size of the folder it shows e.g. 14.7 MB even though it sais "0" messages. It looks like the messages are still there but they are not showing. And now every time I try to move a message into a subfolder, or delete a message, I am getting an error message about some error writing to some specific folder failing when compacting, and whether there is sufficient disc space. But there is still 150 GB of free space on the C drive The I have to shut down Thunderbird and restart it because non of the folders show any messages anymore. Any idea what is happening here ?

All Replies (1)

Start Thunderbird in Troubleshoot Mode. The following article explains how to do that and why it can be useful to help identify the cause of a problem:

https://support.mozilla.org/kb/troubleshoot-mode-thunderbird

What's your operating system? If Windows, start in Safe Mode with Networking mode. You may have to connect your computer to the router with an Ethernet cable, WiFi is disabled in Safe Mode:

https://support.microsoft.com/help/12376/windows-10-start-your-pc-in-safe-mode

Does any of that cause the problem to go away?

While still in Safe Mode, if Thunderbird keeps not showing messages that are in a folder, right-click on the folder, choose Properties, then click on the Repair Folder button.

If Thunderbird shows error messages when making changes to folders in normal mode, but not in Safe Mode, that's a clear indication that you have an antivirus or some other piece of software that's interfering with Thunderbird.