This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Thunderbird lost emails and folders

  • 1 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
  • 17 views
  • Last reply by Darren

more options

Hello Thunderbird Community,

I am not tech savvy and I really need help recovering lost folders and e-mails that were stored on Thunderbird.

The trouble started yesterday when I was unable to open Thunderbird due to an "XUL Runner" error message. A Best Buy Geek Squad technician was able to fix the glitch and restore Thunderbird, but in the process all of my folders, subfolders and very important business e-mails seem to have been deleted or lost. Three Geek Squad agent spent several hours trying to restore these folders and e-mails, to no avail.

Strangely, my inbox seems to have not lost any e-mails, but my Trash folder is empty and my Sent folder only contains a few random e-mails from 2009-2017. But all of the folders that I created, such as "Marketing" and "Invoices" and "Contracts" and many more, are nowhere to be seen.

Does anyone have any tips on how I might recover these folders and e-mails?

Thanks, Darren

Hello Thunderbird Community, I am not tech savvy and I really need help recovering lost folders and e-mails that were stored on Thunderbird. The trouble started yesterday when I was unable to open Thunderbird due to an "XUL Runner" error message. A Best Buy Geek Squad technician was able to fix the glitch and restore Thunderbird, but in the process all of my folders, subfolders and very important business e-mails seem to have been deleted or lost. Three Geek Squad agent spent several hours trying to restore these folders and e-mails, to no avail. Strangely, my inbox seems to have not lost any e-mails, but my Trash folder is empty and my Sent folder only contains a few random e-mails from 2009-2017. But all of the folders that I created, such as "Marketing" and "Invoices" and "Contracts" and many more, are nowhere to be seen. Does anyone have any tips on how I might recover these folders and e-mails? Thanks, Darren

All Replies (1)

more options

Update: I downloaded the missing files from my cloud back-up, but a Geek Squad technician said that he couldn't upload or integrate the files into Thunderbird because, according to him, Mozilla has stopped supporting Thunderbird and he couldn't find a package installer to match current files.

I am not tech savvy, so I'm not sure how to fix the problem. Any suggestions? Anyone know a professional computer tech with Thunderbird expertise who does remote work?