Can I restore POP emails to the server?
The Mac Mail client I've used for years is falling apart under Big Sur. I mentioned this to a friend and he reminded me of Thunderbird - I had used it MANY years ago. I've recently converted to Firefox so this seemed like something to explore.
I downloaded it and entered the account info for my personal email via Sonic.net (POP) and work (via gmail). I was pleased to see the emails syncing for both accounts.
Until a couple of hours later when I noted that ALL my mail was gone on my laptop running Mail. I traced this to a DEFAULT setting of removing the emails from the server.
Please insert an expletive here.
You've got to be kidding me - this is the default? Is there ANY way I can get those emails back on the server? Luckily my work account still has the emails on the server.
I hope you can help.
-Johnny Klonaris
(Please don't make me burn my Firefox - he's cute up there on the shelf)
Выбранное решение
You seen intent on trying to prove me wrong. Those cases are different. I installed Thunderbird clean and let it configure itself. It chose POP instead of IMAP. When I checked the preferences, *after* the emails had been deleted, it was already set to delete the emails off the server on download. I DID NOT set that - in fact, I turned that off as soon I discovered it.
Sonic was able to help me. The "solution" of uploading the emails via IMAP duplicated thousands of emails that had already been moved to the trash - those additional emails push my usage above the sonic.net mailserver's limit. Once I have moved the emails to a local file, and backed it up, we were able to delete the 50k+ emails that had been moved the trash. This freed up the account and the 18K+ plus emails I had uploaded through IMAP were there. I was able to upload the rest though Thunderbird from the local file.
I fill file a help ticket but let me be clear: There is NO case where setting up an account automatically should delete messages off the server without first getting a confirmation from the user. PERIOD.
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Leaving messages on the server is the default for Thunderbird, but it may not be the default or even supported by your provider. You can upload messages to the server using IMAP. You can have the same account added as an IMAP account, then copy from the POP account to the IMAP to upload them.
It was NOT the default as I did not touch the preferences until *after* it had deleted the messages from my ISP - and sure enough that's what it was set to. It is NOT the default for my ISP which I've been using for over ten years now.
Do you have a process documented for uploading the emails from Thunderbird (currently the only place on the planet that has my emails) to my ISP?
-Johnny
All you have to do is add your email account to Thunderbird, selecting IMAP instead of POP, then when done, simply select the messages you want to upload. right-click them, select the Copy To option and choose the target folder under the IMAP account. Just make sure you select a smaller batch of messages to upload at a time, say 200 messages, until all messages are uploaded. Processing a huge number of messages at once can cause Thunderbird to stop responding.
I see - so I "add" the account that is already there, that Thunderbird already configured automatically for POP *and* configured to delete the messages. Then upload 200 messages at a time - and repeat over 200 times - to recover from the damage done by the software? Did I get that right?
I've been a user for a LONG time using Firefox on for my job in Linux for 20 years. I just completed migrating my Macs from Safari to Firefox and was looking forward to using Thunderbird. I've also been a modest contributor of $$ over that time.
And all of this heartbreak and tediousness all because the Thunderbird team is apparently incapable of testing their "wonderful" self-configuration tool to prevent it from incorrectly configuring to delete the message on the server.
I'm severely disappointed and will now have to consider never using Mozilla s/w ever again.
OK - this process appears to be working - so Stans, thank you for that.
firefox1600 said
Thunderbird team is apparently incapable of testing their "wonderful" self-configuration tool to prevent it from incorrectly configuring to delete the message on the server
I just launched a new profile and added a POP account and can confirm that the default is to leave messages on the server for at most 14 days or until I delete them. I have no idea how your instance of Tbird automatically deleted messages shortly after downloading them or how it defaulted to not leaving them on the server. You can test this on a new profile and if this is really the case, then you may have found a bug with the Mac version of Tbird, which you can report here bugzilla.mozilla.org
And now I can't add text?
Third try: What proportion of the last 10 years worth of mails do you think are older that 14 days?
After several hours of copying and getting nearly halfway - the process has stopped working...
And now: All my emails have been deleted from the IMAP folder - all that work - and the emails I've received in the last day: gone from my ISP.
Plus - the several years wroth of emails I was able to upload - got down loaded in the POP folder - so those are now duplicated VASTLY complicating the process now that I have start over from scratch.
And for the record - my ISP, Sonic.net, has been very solid through the years and they document clearly how to set up Thunderbird: https://help.sonic.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000384388-Thunderbird
And it clearly indicates to use IMAP. This setup tool is garbage and needs to be flushed NOW. I've been testing software for 25 years and this is horrible.
I'm afraid I have no idea why Thunderbird is behaving abnormally on your end.
On my end - right. Like it's my fault.
FYI - the fact that I followed your suggestion to copy the emails to the IMAP folder - duplicate so many emails - that my email is now full - my INBOX on sonic.net now appears empty - and.. when I mentioned to Sonic.net support that I wondered what people without a background in software do when they try to use Thunderbird - he said they get LOTS of call for this problem - often taking hours on the phone to fix.
You can get rid of duplicates in the POP account quite easily. Install the add-on found here https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/removedupes/ and use it to find and delete duplicates from the POP inbox.
I don't know what you mean by your email is now full. Full in what sense? Ran out of disk space on the server or your computer?
Also, since you changed Thunderbird's settings from the "default" of deleting messages from the server to NOT delete them, yet the uploaded messages were still deleted when downloaded by the POP side, it would seem the changes you made had no effect. Like I said before, you can report a bug to that effect so that it can be confirmed if it's a problem for others as well or just unique to your setup/environment. If it's a bug in the code for which developers are responsible, then it should be readily reproduced and confirmed as a defect, don't you think?
After cleaning up the duplicates, you can alter the POP account's server name by changing a single character to prevent it from downloading and deleting from the server. You will of course encounter connectivity problems with the POP account, which is the intended outcome. Re-upload to the server, you can try 2000 messages at a time if your provider doesn't limit your bandwidth, and once all messages have been restored to the server, you can delete the POP account and continue using IMAP instead, at least until POP stops deleting from the server, that is if you still want to use Thunderbird.
Выбранное решение
You seen intent on trying to prove me wrong. Those cases are different. I installed Thunderbird clean and let it configure itself. It chose POP instead of IMAP. When I checked the preferences, *after* the emails had been deleted, it was already set to delete the emails off the server on download. I DID NOT set that - in fact, I turned that off as soon I discovered it.
Sonic was able to help me. The "solution" of uploading the emails via IMAP duplicated thousands of emails that had already been moved to the trash - those additional emails push my usage above the sonic.net mailserver's limit. Once I have moved the emails to a local file, and backed it up, we were able to delete the 50k+ emails that had been moved the trash. This freed up the account and the 18K+ plus emails I had uploaded through IMAP were there. I was able to upload the rest though Thunderbird from the local file.
I fill file a help ticket but let me be clear: There is NO case where setting up an account automatically should delete messages off the server without first getting a confirmation from the user. PERIOD.
On the contrary, I couldn't care less about who's wrong and who's right. Getting into pointless arguments is not what brings me here. All I care about is objectivity. Like I said twice before, report a bug if you feel like Thunderbird is bugging out and not respecting message deletion settings for POP accounts. This matter was addressed in an 18 year old bug report here https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=231541 and starting with Thunderbird 3 the default setting was set to leave messages on the server. If you believe that your case is a regression from the norm due to Thunderbird's buggy code, just file a bug report and it will get the attention of its developers for further investigation. Isn't that better than hurling expletives here? I don't need you to agree with me on anything. Whatever you do with the information provided here is up to you. At the end of the day, we're all here volunteering to help and if we can't, then we'll offer directions to where you can get help.
If on the other hand you just want a place to vent your frustration with Thunderbird, by all means leave volunteers out of it. All we have is the information that we can gather on your behalf, whether you deem it helpful or not. Whether that information proves you wrong or right is NOT the objective. That info is there for you to do with it as you please. No one here wants or will even try to force you into taking anything offered.
I tried filing a bug report - it didn't recognize me so I requested a new account - and never got an email. I'll try again later.
firefox1600 said
I tried filing a bug report - it didn't recognize me so I requested a new account - and never got an email. I'll try again later.
Check your spam folder incase the email went there.
That would be the server-side spam folder, which is usually not accessible via POP.
The problem with submitting the bug was that I had mistyped the email - I was pretty livid and tired at the problem.
I work in open source and I am aware that the support here is from volunteers. That that end, believe me I pulled back hard on my responses, but the thought that I may have just lost 10 years worth of email had me quite agitated. Plus that fact the your "solution" caused everything to lockup and my emails were once again deleted had me in a very tense state.
That said, I should have held back my frustration even more. My apologies. (Do try to give less dangerous "solutions" in the future, please?)
The bug is filed here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1739012
Believe it or not, we all have our squabbles with Thunderbird. We feel other users' frustrations, because we too go through them. We may not go explosive to express our frustrations, but we are right there with you in feeling it. We occasionally go off on a rant in our posts too, especially when we're trying to help someone who's more interested in venting at us than what we have to offer. In most cases, though, we don't mind reading others' rants as long as they don't go full retard with expletives. I, for one, find most rants quite funny, but as long as there is a request for a solution in there somewhere, that's what we'll focus on unless the thread starter insists on continuing their offense against us mere users who have little to do with Tbird's developmental roadmap.