Please clarify how you recreated a deleted folder yet seem to have retained all the content. Can you do a screenshot of the profile folder and one of the imapmail\<accountname> folder, and, if appropriate, one of the Mail\<POPaccount> folder? The more that we can see, the more likely we can assist.

Hello David Thank you for your offer to help. During the last one week, I tried a number of things. Net upshot is that I now seem to have my inbox access. However I have 3 separate accounts! And the worse situation is that I do not have access to my archives! A complete shambles, if I ever found myself in one!! I am sharing the screen shots one by one as I peel the onion. The first screenshot shows the profile h7xyz etc. and has imapmail and mail folders. The mail folder is 30.6GB and has all the data. I clicked on the Mail button it opens THREE separate folders. balasai is the hosting service we use. It is a POP server. The size is 20.8GB and has all the archived mail. The mail.accupredict.io is the new email account that has got created in my effort and has the last few days worth of email and all sorts of email in a disorganized mess. When I click the balasai button, it opens the various folders - inbox, archives, sent, drafts, junk etc. Clicking on the Archives.nbd we can see the archived folders from 2021 neatly lined up. I hope this clarifies the situation I am in. Please help me get back to ONE account with all my emails in the right folders. A big THANK YOU. Milind

Can you post a screenshot of the Thunderbird main screen? Those three folders are all legitimate, one for each POP account and one for Local Folders. Seeing the screenshot of the profile folder will help understand how Thunderbird is presenting the accounts. Thank you

Hello David Here is the screenshot. I am assuming this is what you are asking for. You can see there are THREE separate places where various messages are parked. In addition sadly, none of these has access to Archives folder! Hope this clarifies the situation better! Thank You for your help.

Ok, as I see it you have set up two accounts with the same email address. Thunderbird retrieves one, and not the other . My observation is that the second one shown is the active account.

Before starting, I suggest exiting thunderbird and making a copy of the profile with windows file explorer, just in case things go awry.

Now, restart thunderbird.

For folders in the first account, rightclick and select to COPY to associated folders in the second account. The archives seem to be in the first account. I would exit thunderbird and, in windows file explorer, COPY the archive folder of first account and paste into the same location in second account

Now, restart thunderbird, check for the archives and, now rlghtclick the inbox in local folder and select properties to see what it is associated with. My guess is the first account. If the contents are unique, rightclick and COPY to the second accounts inbox.

Now, close the first account and when prompted to delete associated data, allow it. I would now close and restart thunderbird. You should now have just one account. Let me know.

Thank You David. I will work on this over the weekend and let you know. Keeping fingers crossed in the meantime!

A big THANK YOU David! I do not know how else to express my gratitude! You saved my life!! I feel like I have come back from the dead!! As you can see all the multiple Inboxes have disappeared and the Archives are neatly laid out by year like before. I have one more request while I still have your attention: I have bought a new Macbook. How do I transition all this data (now in one place) from Windows to MacOS? Appreciate your support. Warm regards Milind

Ok, as I see it you have set up two accounts with the same email address. Thunderbird retrieves one, and not the other . My observation is that the second one shown is the active account.

Sounds like Bug 303542 ? "Duplicate account(same hostname/userName) can be created when realhostname/realuserName is set for already defined account (duplicated accounts are; not shown by Tb 2, shown as duplicates by Tb 3)"

And yet, we have Bug 486729 - Insufficient behavior when trying to create a new account as a duplicate of another account

I am very pleased to have helped you out of that hole. I am unfamiliar with MacOS file structure, but I share here the steps as they would apply if switching from one Windows PC to another. I made a few comments that I hope are useful with the MacOS

BACKUP

1. ensure thunderbird is not running
2. enter %appdata% in search window on task bar and press Enter key
3. this should open windows file explorer in Appdata\roaming folder
4. highlight the Thunderbird folder and copy to external media

RESTORE

On the MAC, here are my suggestions:

1. install thunderbird, start it, click help>troubleshootinginformation, scroll down to 'profile folder' and click 'open folder'
2. you are now in the Mac File structure, back up two folders and you should be in the folder named Thunderbird. Note it's location.
3. now exit Thunderbird and paste the copied Thunderbird folder from Windows to OVERLAY the Mac's Thunderbird folder
4. start thunderbird and all should be there

Let me know. If that doesn't work, I have another approach.

@Wayne, I defer to your more extensive knowledge on bugs. To me, this looks like some missteps he indicates may have happened. so I am hesitant on agree or disagree. Thanks for looking into this.

Hi David I copied the 'Thunderbird' folder to an exteral drive, downloaded Thunderbird on my Macbook ; started it up and went up 2 levels to the 'Thunderbird' folder. I connected the external media and copied the Thunderbird folder on top of the existing folder., The first time I made a mistake in asking MacOS to replace the existing folder. That simply would not work and generated error messages. I realized my mistake, deleted the Thunderbird Application and started all over. Reinstalled Thunderbird, located the Thunderbird folder and this time I asked MacOS to add rather than replace files. The result is I can see the current folders - Inbox, Sent, Trash & Junk. However the Archives are not to be found. Is this because of my mistake in deleting first and some files remained after deleting the APP? Or should we approach the task differently. I feel we are very close.... Milind

First, I don't understand the adding files instead of replacing. If a profile was already there, a replace seems more appropriate. The archives should have been in the copied profile. If you still have the copied profile, look in the folder for the account and it should be there.

Hi David, Need your help on this one. I have tried and tried, with no success to get Thunderbird to show me all the archived folders as it does on the Windows PC. What am I doing wrong? I have tried deleting Thunderbird and downloading, replacing the profiles folder with that on the Windows PC and it does not work. I tried replacing the entire Thunderbird folder and it too does not work. There must be a way to only get the system to read the files I want it to. Can you please give me a step by step instruction on what I should do. If necessary, please advise how I can delete the complete install and start all over. Thank You. Milind

First, deleting and reinstalling usually destroys some of what is wanted. Since you have the profile on external media that you transported to the MAC, i suggest you look in the folder using windows file explorer to locate the physical location of the archive folders that you referenced several posts back. then, copy them from then and paste into the Mail\Local Folders folder of the Mac.

Hello David After numerous attempts, I have failed to make any progress! Not sure what I am making a mess out of! I am sharing the screen shot of the profile folder. You can see there are numerous profiles now in place. Each time I have loaded Thunderbird it seems to create a new profile. I have no idea how to deal with this sprawl. However we can let that wait for the moment and focus on securing access to the files with email messages.

The current profile is the one in Blue (bcoi9Ic7 etc.). I copy pasted the archive folders from my previous email folder and you can see them neatly lined up in the Local Folders under archives.

However when I open my email page, I see nothing! There are strangely 2 folders titled 2021 and 2023 which are empty! What happened to the messages in them and what about the rest is a complete mystery to me.

I really hope you can help me sort this out.

Warm Regards

Milind

I suggest exiting thunderbird while you dig on this. Go through that default profile first, and then all the others. If you find what you want, please do not attempt to fix it, but to write down their exact location so fixing can go more quickly. Look in every folder in the Mail directory, including the sbd folders. Your screenshot did not show contents of the sbd folders, yet that is exactly where the content should be. I noticed that 2022 and 2023 appear to have messages. Ignore the msf entries. In the 2022.sbd there may be another 2022 file, and likewise in the 2023.sbd folder. Browse each file in https://www.mbox-viewer.com/ for content. That is a free website that lets you see messages in an mbox file and my hope is that you see content in one of the 2022 files and in one of the 2023 files. Let me know. If there are move message folders that are missing, the look in each of the other nine profiles in the Mail folder, again opening ever folder and every sbd folder. Let me know and we will then collect what is there.

Hi David I am sharing 3 screenshots showing the various profiles that Thunderbird has created each time I downloaded and tried setting up. The Blue profile folder (bcoi9lc etc) has all the old archives data in the Local Folders neatly set up by year. You can see that the sizes of the .sbd folders are in GB or hundreds of MB. For the life of me I cannot understand why therefore will Thunderbird not allow me to see the archives in the Home Screen. As I shared in my last message the home screen just shows 2021 and 2023 but no files or a few random messages embedded inside. So where did the rest disappear? I am hoping there is something very simple that I am missing. Please help me clean this mess so I can see the archives. I am able to do this with the platform on a Windows PC even today. Beats me why I cannot do this on a MacBook. Thank You for your help. Warm Regards Milind

Did you follow my suggestions to isolate the files and view them? Knowing those results will tell us of next steps.

Hi David I have opened these folders on my Windows PC and I can see all the files inside. I am still getting familiar with the MacOS and it seems slightly different tracing the hierarchy of files in the OS as compared to Windows. I will try again today and see if I can do better!