Emails not showing in Deleted folder

Two things come to mind that could affect this:

- You have one of the Quick Filter buttons engaged, so it would show only, say, Unread or Starred messages (which are likely None);

- The folder index is corrupt and is not displaying the folder contents correctly. To fix that, right click on the folder name in the Folders List and choose "Properties", then click the "Repair Folder" button.

Thanks for your reply. None of the quick filter buttons are engaged. I clicked on the Repair Folder button and after restarting Thunderbird the emails did appear. However, on sending further emails to the Deleted folder they were added to the total but did not display.

- What is your operating system?

- Is this an IMAP or POP3 account?

OK, here's a couple more things to try.

- If you don't care about the messages that are currently in the Deleted/Trash folder, right-click on it in the Folders list and choose "Empty Trash". Then watch to see how newly-deleted messages behave. Hopefully things will be back to normal

This suggestion makes some assumptions. If these are wrong assumptions, let me know. If not Windows, the basic method will be similar, but if it doesn't translate for you, let me know.

- You are using Windows.

- You are comfortable navigating the file system with the system file browser (Explorer).

- This is an IMAP account, or it's a POP3 account and you don't care if the messages in the folder are gone for good.

Now, let's proceed....

- See <Account Settings | Server Settings | Message Storage>. Make a note of the Local Directory, or better yet, copy it to the clipboard.

- Open up Windows Explorer, and paste the path you copied above into its Address Bar. This will take you to where all that account's folders are stored in Thunderbird.

- Close Thunderbird

- Look for the pair of files that represent your Deleted folder (could also be called "Trash" or other.) One will be called "Trash", the other "Trash.msf"

- MOVE those two files to a convenient temporary location, say, a temporary folder on your Windows Desktop. These can be deleted later if things work out or swapped back in if they don't

- Now restart Thunderbird. If it's an IMAP account, the folder will be recreated automatically. If it's a POP3 account, the folder will be recreated next time you delete something.

I am using Windows 11. The account is an IMAP account. My "trash" is called Deleted. When I right-clicked and emptied Deleted nothing happened...the files were still there. I copied the path to Windows Explorer. There was only one file called "deleted.msf" . Nothing called just "Deleted". None called trash. There was a "Junk.msf" but that does not show in the left-hand pane. I moved "deleted.msf" to a temporary folder. Restarted Thunderbird. It did not recreate any trash, deleted or junk folders. There is nowhere now to delete anything to. If I right-click on a file and click on the delete icon, the file disappears ... no Deleted, Trash or Junk folder is there to take it. Nothing is recreated as you suggest.

Kind regards, Alex

Who is your email provider?

At this point, rather than spinning your wheels looking for an obscure solution, I think it would be a better use of your time to delete the account and add it back in again, It's an IMAP account, so there's no risk of data loss, just the time and bandwidth to sync the account's folders.

You should make a safety backup of your Thunderbird profile first. These articles describe Profiles and how to back them up. Use the instructions for manually backing up large profiles - the built-in export tool has some limitations.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-export#w_creating-a-backup-of-large-profiles