Former email server dead; want to export past emails. Can't.
I was c.e.o. and president of a nonprofit for 16 years. It had a gmail account that used the company's name and a dot org when we sent or received email. When I left, I downloaded my email and imported it to Thunderbird. The nonprofit cancelled my account and has gone out of business, essentially. The Thunderbird keeps telling me I can't reach the server for that account--no kidding--and won't let me export, save as, print, or print (except one at a time) these very valuable emails because I have to enter the master password number. I don't believe I created one because it was on my home computer and the account's actually password is no longer any help.
And I archived the email at one point--believing I might be able to export the archive--and now I can't find the archive at all!
Sign me as nearly defeated.
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Hello,
I’m sorry to hear about your issue, but in theory, all is probably not lost.
- First, was/is the Gmail account set up as POP or IMAP? You can see this in Account Settings > Server Settings. This is only important to know the format Thunderbird stores the mail on your system.
- Then, make sure to create a backup of your Thunderbird profile just in case, assuming there is only one, or all of them. Use Help > Troubleshooting Information > Show in Finder - this opens the profile folder in use. Close Thunderbird and copy the profile folder (looking like x1a2d4dr.default) including the profiles.ini file located in its parent folder to a safe place. Please avoid using a tool called Mozbackup to create the backup. See the Profiles - Where Thunderbird stores your messages and other user data article for more info on profiles. In the profile folder itself, you can find a folder called Mail, ImapMail, or both. Your mail should be in a folder in one of them, likely called pop.gmail.com or imap.gmail.com.
- If you archived your email previously using the same method, there should be a copy of the profile folder name or its contents some where on your disk - now you know its name. I don’t suppose you archived to a folder called Archive within a Thunderbird account.
- A master password should only be asked for as soon as Thunderbird requests access to stored passwords and should not block you from viewing messages, nor from exporting them as far as I know, but I may be wrong. The request would therefor just mean Thunderbird may have been set to fetch mail on startup. If you do need or want to remove the master password and know it, you can simply remove it. If you don’t, you can find a way to reset it at the bottom of the article. However, that will remove all (+other) stored passwords for all accounts and may lock you out, unless you know or view them first in Preferences > Security > Passwords.
- As you would like to export multiple messages at a time, installing the ImportExportTools add-on into Thunderbird may be the best and easiest thing to do. See the page about its features.
- You should also be able to just drag and drop existing messages from the Gmail account to another account’s folder, which may suffice.
- Since you created a backup of the profile and hence all mail, you should always be able to copy the data to any other Thunderbird installation.
- Thunderbird should be able to print multiple emails by selecting them using command + click, and then use one of the available print commands. You could also install the PrintingTools add-on, though I’m not sure if it supports printing multiple messages or provide other benefits.
Can you report back where things may fail or cause issues?