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I have a new email address and my old one has been closed down. Can I still access the messages from the old account on Thunderbird and if so, how?

  • 2 replies
  • 3 have this problem
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  • Last reply by KenFF

SiCroy
SiCroy
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Hi

My boss set up a new e-mail address for me. If anyone uses my old address the messages are being sent to the new one.

Now the new one is on Thunderbird and the old one has gone (shut down) I can't access any of the emails from the old account that were saved to the work P.C.

Considering I can't sign in on the old account, is there some way I can access the old messages on Thunderbird and will they even still be there? Everything I've read suggests they are still there, but I cannot work out how to access them. I have located the folder where they (hopefully) are saved, but I can't work out how to get Thunderbird to show anything that isn't associated with the new account.

I really don't know what i'm doing with this (or email settings in general, so any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Simon

Hi My boss set up a new e-mail address for me. If anyone uses my old address the messages are being sent to the new one. Now the new one is on Thunderbird and the old one has gone (shut down) I can't access any of the emails from the old account that were saved to the work P.C. Considering I can't sign in on the old account, is there some way I can access the old messages on Thunderbird and will they even still be there? Everything I've read suggests they are still there, but I cannot work out how to access them. I have located the folder where they (hopefully) are saved, but I can't work out how to get Thunderbird to show anything that isn't associated with the new account. I really don't know what i'm doing with this (or email settings in general, so any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Simon

All Replies (2)

Zenos
Zenos
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This depends on what kind of connection the two accounts use, and how you went about moving from one to the other.

If they use POP then messages are stored on your computer and should be recoverable. Under these circumstances, I would hope that you had "removed" the account in Thunderbird. This will have removed visible references to the account but leaves the underlying data in place.

If they use IMAP then the data is stored (in the main) on the server and recovery is less certain. Again if you have removed the account in Thunderbird, there may still be cache copies that can be recovered. To avoid such messages being deleted, it's best to work on these with Thunderbird offline.

If you have changed an existing account to use the new address then it's not so clear cut. I would have hoped, with POP, the new messages would remain visible to you. IMAP is not so clear cut because you'd be looking at a new folder on the server and that wouldn't have your old messages, unless whoever did the changeover did it properly and moved your old contents to the new account for you. But if you are asking, I guess this wasn't what happened. :-(

If you think you have found an older folder with your messages in it, I would suggest you use this add-on:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/

…to import those messages into your Local Folders account in Thunderbird. And go offline before trying this.

KenFF
KenFF
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But my question is -- IF I DELETE the account, how will I access the messages???

And, can I export/backup them before I try?

Modified by KenFF