Can't see my emails because the host email password from my old work has been changed? Can I still access my old emails? Are they saved locally?
My old employer gave me pernission to copy my email across to Thunderbird so I would have it as a reference if I needed it after leaving. I did this months ago and it worked fine but now I expect they have updated the password to the main gmail account and I can no longer see any emails at all. Can I use the profile to retrieve them and move them into a new account?
I have attached a couple of screen grabs that might give you more info.
1. The error message which makes me think they have changed the password. 2. The path to my profile. 3. My setting for copies and folders.
Выбранное решение
re :My old employer gave me pernission to copy my email across to Thunderbird so I would have it as a reference if I needed it after leaving. I did this months ago
The info shows you created an imap mail account which allowed access to server folders for that account.
Imap accounts only show what is on server assuming it has access. This is not a Thunderbird quirk, it is how all imap accounts work.
Imap account can be setup to only download headers and when you select an email to read, it is downloaded to a temp cache to faciliate viewing. In this case there would only be index .msf files in the profile.
Imap account can also be setup to download full copies of emails, in which case there would be mbox files contianing emails and also the index .msf files.
As all imap folders synchronise with server, you cannot rely on them as being a copy on your computer. To see emails you are relying on access to account on the server and the account containing all emails and folders because emails are stored on the server. If emails were removed off server by employer and you synchronised with an account with empty server folders then you would see nothing because nothing exists in those server folders. Imap account folders and server folders are in effect one and the same.
The info in the images does not show that you downloaded full copies as there are no mbox files (no extension). I can only see index files (*.msf) and the INBOX.msf file has a good size which means it contains a load of header type information that it would use to access a selected email on server. So, I would assume you cannot access server because that file would be small in size if had connected to an empty server.
Your 'Local Folders' mail account does not contain any folders, so it seems you did not copy any emails to get copies that did not rely on access to server.
You have a [Gmail].sbd folder, so it would be worth checking what is in that folder. Post image showing contents.
For future reference, if you need to download emails off a server using an imap connection and store them on your computer so that they are permanently stored on your computer and you can have access without relying on your previous employer allowing you permanent access, you would do the following:
Set up account settings to synchronise and download full copies in all imap folders. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/imap-synchronization#w_configuring-synchronization-and-disk-space-usage This would create mbox files containing emails. Go into offline mode to prevent further synchronising whilst copying a load of emails. Create new folders in the 'Local Folders' mail account. Right click on batches of highlighted emails and select 'Copy to' and choose a suitable folder in the 'Local Folders' mail account. Repeat action of copying until you have finished. Check you can read email contents in Local Folders mail account, so you know you have good copies. Go back to online mode. When and if new mail arrives, you copy it over to the 'Local Folders' account. This means that if you no longer could access the server or previous employer removed emails or the account, you would still have emails stored on your computer.
If there are mbox files (no extension) in the '[Gmail].sbd' folder, you can copy those mbox files into the 'bwgmmtp5.default/Mail/'Local Folders' folder whilst Thunderbird is closed. If there are no mbox files in the '[Gmail].sbd' folder then you do not have any emails stored on your computer. It would seem you only created an imap account to access server and never actually downloaded copies and stored them in a more permanent location.
Assuming your previous employer has not removed the account and emails are still in that account on server, you are going going to get access by knowing the password.
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Выбранное решение
re :My old employer gave me pernission to copy my email across to Thunderbird so I would have it as a reference if I needed it after leaving. I did this months ago
The info shows you created an imap mail account which allowed access to server folders for that account.
Imap accounts only show what is on server assuming it has access. This is not a Thunderbird quirk, it is how all imap accounts work.
Imap account can be setup to only download headers and when you select an email to read, it is downloaded to a temp cache to faciliate viewing. In this case there would only be index .msf files in the profile.
Imap account can also be setup to download full copies of emails, in which case there would be mbox files contianing emails and also the index .msf files.
As all imap folders synchronise with server, you cannot rely on them as being a copy on your computer. To see emails you are relying on access to account on the server and the account containing all emails and folders because emails are stored on the server. If emails were removed off server by employer and you synchronised with an account with empty server folders then you would see nothing because nothing exists in those server folders. Imap account folders and server folders are in effect one and the same.
The info in the images does not show that you downloaded full copies as there are no mbox files (no extension). I can only see index files (*.msf) and the INBOX.msf file has a good size which means it contains a load of header type information that it would use to access a selected email on server. So, I would assume you cannot access server because that file would be small in size if had connected to an empty server.
Your 'Local Folders' mail account does not contain any folders, so it seems you did not copy any emails to get copies that did not rely on access to server.
You have a [Gmail].sbd folder, so it would be worth checking what is in that folder. Post image showing contents.
For future reference, if you need to download emails off a server using an imap connection and store them on your computer so that they are permanently stored on your computer and you can have access without relying on your previous employer allowing you permanent access, you would do the following:
Set up account settings to synchronise and download full copies in all imap folders. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/imap-synchronization#w_configuring-synchronization-and-disk-space-usage This would create mbox files containing emails. Go into offline mode to prevent further synchronising whilst copying a load of emails. Create new folders in the 'Local Folders' mail account. Right click on batches of highlighted emails and select 'Copy to' and choose a suitable folder in the 'Local Folders' mail account. Repeat action of copying until you have finished. Check you can read email contents in Local Folders mail account, so you know you have good copies. Go back to online mode. When and if new mail arrives, you copy it over to the 'Local Folders' account. This means that if you no longer could access the server or previous employer removed emails or the account, you would still have emails stored on your computer.
If there are mbox files (no extension) in the '[Gmail].sbd' folder, you can copy those mbox files into the 'bwgmmtp5.default/Mail/'Local Folders' folder whilst Thunderbird is closed. If there are no mbox files in the '[Gmail].sbd' folder then you do not have any emails stored on your computer. It would seem you only created an imap account to access server and never actually downloaded copies and stored them in a more permanent location.
Assuming your previous employer has not removed the account and emails are still in that account on server, you are going going to get access by knowing the password.
Luckily I can still get the password for the host email so I will do that and then follow the the instructions you provided. Thanks.