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Lost all my emails after switching provider (IMAP Account)

Thunderbird Troubleshooting
user01229325 replied
will_r
will_r

Hi,

Have just switched domain / email provider and so wanted to update my Thunderbird settings to point to the new server. Foolishly I did this without realising that it would wipe out all my old emails! I have now learned that I should have done backups before changing settings and seems I am now learning the hard way.

I have managed to locate the IMAP account in question within my profile folder and found a file therein called 'INBOX'. I copied that to the local folder and upon restarting Thunderbird was relieved to see some of my old emails in there. However, I only seem to have emails up until last April 2016 so am still missing all emails for the last 15 months. Any ideas why this is and how I might find the rest?

Would be very grateful for any advice, thanks.

Hi, Have just switched domain / email provider and so wanted to update my Thunderbird settings to point to the new server. Foolishly I did this without realising that it would wipe out all my old emails! I have now learned that I should have done backups before changing settings and seems I am now learning the hard way. I have managed to locate the IMAP account in question within my profile folder and found a file therein called 'INBOX'. I copied that to the local folder and upon restarting Thunderbird was relieved to see some of my old emails in there. However, I only seem to have emails up until last April 2016 so am still missing all emails for the last 15 months. Any ideas why this is and how I might find the rest? Would be very grateful for any advice, thanks.

All Replies (1)

user01229325
user01229325

Contact your old provider. If they do not have them left on their server or will not provide them to you, you are out of luck. When using IMAP the messages are stored on the providers server and not in Thunderbird.