Thunderbird deletes (all) folders in accounts when connection fails?
I have several email accounts in Thunderbird where the email address no longer exists, at least on the specified IMAP server. Thunderbird is configured to not attempt automatically getting mail for these.
I had used Thunderbird 102 on Windows 10 for years, and in that version, my mail was kept in Thunderbird for those accounts (though whenever I opened any folder in them, I was somewhat annoyingly prompted to enter my credentials since the connection to the server was failing). To copy my profile folder to a new Linux installation, I updated Thunderbird to 153.5.1esr, the same version running on Linux, as Flatpak. My mail is still kept in Thunderbird on Windows, but with the same profile on Linux, Thunderbird "hid" all folders from the offline email accounts (apart from an "Inbox" folder that is shown as empty): the files are still there in the profile directory, and Thunderbird seems to find relevant emails in search, but opening them leads to a "No mail found" screen, and there is no way to access this mail from the folder pane. How can I make Thunderbird see my mail again?
As if that was not enough, on a whim I decided to attempt the "Repair folder" option on my Windows instance of Thunderbird, where the folders were still being shown normally. I immediately regretted not having made a backup of my profile (I only have one from version 102, where the data was apparently stored rather differently), since this just deleted all mail in the selected folder entirely, with the relevant file in the profile directory being empty. (The file seems to be somewhat different on Linux too, since copying it back to the Windows profile did not restore the mail in Thunderbird, and I would probably have to copy my Thunderbird 102 backup into an install of Thunderbird 102 and manually upgrade to my/the newest version to get it back.)
I know local folders would never be deleted like this, but there does not even seem to be an option to move an entire mailbox into a local folder, other than manually. It does not appear like Thunderbird has proper support for mailboxes that are no longer available. It would be undesirable to have all my mail in some new mailbox lost in the same way after I lose access to it. (Local folders would not really help in this situation either, unless you plan out exactly when your mailbox goes offline.)
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It does not appear like Thunderbird has proper support for mailboxes that are no longer available.
With IMAP there is no concept of a local offline account. To preserve your messages you should have copied your messages from the IMAP account to the Local Folders account, while the account still existed on the IMAP server.
Local folders would not really help in this situation either, unless you plan out exactly when your mailbox goes offline.
Isn't that would you did by deliberately deleting the account on the IMAP server? That's different from a server being not reachable for whatever reason. But even then accidents can happen. This is what backups are for. For local backups to work in connection with an IMAP account you'll have to turn on 'Synchronization' in Thunderbird. That's Thunderbird speak for downloading an offline copy of all messages on the server to your local disk. https://support.mozilla.org/kb/imap-synchronization
Được chỉnh sửa bởi christ1 vào
christ1 said
With IMAP there is no concept of a local offline account. To preserve your messages you should have copied your messages from the IMAP account to the Local Folders account, while the account still existed on the IMAP server.
I'm sorry, but you cannot sell me this behavior as a feature. Especially since messages are kept in some form, on Windows shown exactly like for other inboxes (modulo unexpected wiping through "Repair folder"), on Linux at least as profile folders on disk (that are seen by Thunderbird's search) somehow. The inconsistency between the two systems does not make it more plausible that it is intentional.
It is also just bad UX to expect the user to know that this is what they need to do to preserve mail from their older accounts. It does not appear to be documented clearly anywhere. And as I said, the only way to archive an entire mailbox like this is moving folders individually; there is no single setting to do this for the entire mailbox. RSS feeds have a "Pause updates" setting; why is that not a thing for mail? Do you think anything would be different if I had used POP3 instead of IMAP? I could try changing this in my Windows profile, where things "work", and trying once more to move this to Linux. Would of course be just another ugly workaround.
Isn't that would you did by deliberately deleting the account on the IMAP server? That's different from a server being not reachable for whatever reason.
I did not delete the account on the local server, the service provider did. When institutions tell you your email is expiring, it will often not go offline at the announced time but sometime later, so I would need to make sure I have all emails received until that point... Also, I am not sure what happened here is "different from a server being not reachable". It seems like after copying my profile to Linux, my Protonmail account, which connects to the bridge at 127.0.0.1, suffered the same fate as the other accounts described here. I only installed and set up the bridge later (so the server was not reachable before that), and the mail had to be downloaded again in entirety.
But even then accidents can happen. This is what backups are for. For local backups to work in connection with an IMAP account you'll have to turn on 'Synchronization' in Thunderbird. That's Thunderbird speak for downloading an offline copy of all messages on the server to your local disk. https://support.mozilla.org/kb/imap-synchronization
To clarify, I *am* talking about mailboxes that are stored on disk. I have "Keep messages for this account on this computer" and "Don't delete any messages" enabled (for all mailboxes).
Được chỉnh sửa bởi asdfghjklöä vào
Yes, pop is an ugly workaround.
For imap accounts what's on your computer is a cache and caches are by definition temporary things. Because it is mostly stable it can mislead users to think it will always be stable and reliable as a backup - it is NOT.
So christ1 advice is spot on. For an imap account you simply cannot count on account's folder contents to be a backup - but an actual backup of those folders would be a good thing. "Thunderbird" is not a backup device or tool.
> I have "Keep messages for this account on this computer" and "Don't delete any messages" enabled (for all mailboxes).bold text
You miss the part that for imap accounts, what's on the PC is a mirror of the server, and if the server goes away then the results are undefined.
However, there is desired enhancement in Thunderbird to be able to set individual imap accounts offline by disabling the account, thus preserve the accounts contents. But that is still not a backup.
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