Vanishing emails

- What is your operating system?

- Is this an IMAP or POP3 account?

- How did you update Thunderbird? Did you allow it to self-update, or did you use a "store" or package manager? Or other? Did you see any error messages during or following the update?

The system is Windows 10 (I know! But my computer is just old enough that Microsoft won't let it update to 11). The account is IMAP, a Hotmail address. I updated by opening Thunderbird, clicking HELP/ ABOUT THUNDERBIRD, and clicking on the UPDATE button. The only message I saw was at the end, when it said I had to restart Thunderbird to finish the update. When I restarted, that's when I noticed the Archives emails were gone.

Can I assume that Thunderbird didn't make you set up the Hotmail account from scratch again?

Please go to the Hotmail webmail page and verify that the "missing" messages are still on the server.

Check to make sure none of the Quick Filter buttons are engaged (the filters could hide messages from view, even though they're still there.)

Did you have any Local Folders? Are they still there an intact?

You are correct. Thunderbird did not make me start from scratch.

It's been so long since I've been on Outlook, it took me a while to find the password. But the messages are no longer there, either. The Archives folder on Thunderbird, actually a subfolder, was a local folder. According to the Properties of that subfolder, it's stored on my computer. The subfolder is still there but it's empty.

No Quick Filters are on, either.

Could this have been more of an Outlook problem than a Thunderbird problem?