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Time gap in email retrieved from a POP mailserver

jared3

Thunderbird loaded twice, and I closed the first instance, however this has caused a gap in time in the emails retrieved from a POP mail server. I have tried reseting the mails to "unread" on the mail server but Thunderbirdstill does not download them. is there anyway to reset the time window or otherwise downolad theemails that thundirbird thinks are downloaded? I have tried repairing the inbox folder.

Thunderbird loaded twice, and I closed the first instance, however this has caused a gap in time in the emails retrieved from a POP mail server. I have tried reseting the mails to "unread" on the mail server but Thunderbirdstill does not download them. is there anyway to reset the time window or otherwise downolad theemails that thundirbird thinks are downloaded? I have tried repairing the inbox folder.

All Replies (2)

This is controlled by a file named popstate.dat within the profile in the mail\<POPaccount> folder. If you delete that file, thunderbird will start from scratch. That may not be what you want, but I wanted to share the info, just in case.

I think that is a drastic option. Is there any documentation on the contents of popstate.dat?

Looking at the format, each line seems to consist of 3 elements

  • a single letter "k" in all cases
  • A 16 digit hexadecimal number
  • a timestamp in Unix epoch format

I wonder if each of those is a message ID and the time it was downloaded so If I deleted the enties corresponding to the gap, Thunderbird re-download those messages?

Modified by jared3