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Recovering Email on Local Folders after Reinstalling Windows 10

  • 1 reply
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by sfhowes

Max W. Jamison
Max W. Jamison
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I just found out how to start a new thread, and have asked this as a comment on another, so I apologize for the redundancy.

I am very nervous about this. I made the horrible mistake of deleting partitions on my C: drive and had to reinstall Windows 10. I lost 20 years of Thunderbird email history.

The bad news: After reinstalling Windows 10, I had to reinstall all of my apps so that Windows 10 could link to them. My Thunderbird email history is on the backup of my Local Folder SOMEWHERE out there. But my backup software is out of date and no longer supported.

The good news: I keep all of my applications on different physical drives from my operating system, so I didn't lose anything. AND I had backed up my entire computer to an external hard drive.

Questions: 1. Where does Thunderbird store my Local Folder on my computer, and how do I restore it? 2. How do I install Thunderbird where I WANT it on my D: drive? 3. How do I protect myself from another email disaster if/when my operating system crashes in the future?

I just found out how to start a new thread, and have asked this as a comment on another, so I apologize for the redundancy. I am very nervous about this. I made the horrible mistake of deleting partitions on my C: drive and had to reinstall Windows 10. I lost 20 years of Thunderbird email history. The bad news: After reinstalling Windows 10, I had to reinstall all of my apps so that Windows 10 could link to them. My Thunderbird email history is on the backup of my Local Folder SOMEWHERE out there. But my backup software is out of date and no longer supported. The good news: I keep all of my applications on different physical drives from my operating system, so I didn't lose anything. AND I had backed up my entire computer to an external hard drive. Questions: 1. Where does Thunderbird store my Local Folder on my computer, and how do I restore it? 2. How do I install Thunderbird where I WANT it on my D: drive? 3. How do I protect myself from another email disaster if/when my operating system crashes in the future?

All Replies (1)

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Local Folders is a subfolder of the Mail folder in the profile folder. Find the mbox files - large files with no extensions, named after folders - and copy them to the Mail/Local Folders location of the active profile, while TB is closed. Restart TB and find the folders under Local Folders in the Folder Pane.

The TB program files are created wherever you specify during setup. The profile folder can be moved to a separate location if necessary.

Make regular backups of the profile folder.