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.

Avatar for Username

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

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

I've just deleted what I thought was an old pop account and lost all folders & email, plus I can no longer send email. Can I recover the lost account etc.?

  • 2 replies
  • 4 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by normgray

normgray
normgray
more options

I had 2 accounts showing in Account Settings and believed one to be obsolete as, whenever Thunderbird tried to send email via pop3.optus***.com.au instead of mail.optus***.com.au it failed. It seems all of the incoming messages and most of the out going email was stored in folders related to that account, however deting the account also deleted all of the folders too. I downloaded the recoverDeletedMessages app, but can't see how to get it into Thunderbird. Can the account, but more especially the folders be recovered?

I had 2 accounts showing in Account Settings and believed one to be obsolete as, whenever Thunderbird tried to send email via pop3.optus***.com.au instead of mail.optus***.com.au it failed. It seems all of the incoming messages and most of the out going email was stored in folders related to that account, however deting the account also deleted all of the folders too. I downloaded the recoverDeletedMessages app, but can't see how to get it into Thunderbird. Can the account, but more especially the folders be recovered?

Chosen solution

I spent several hours making alterations to the settings, recreating the account, deleting accounts, speaking to the service provider per chance it was the connection, but nothing I did fixed the Send problem. I also check TCP/IP settings and then used MS Outlook on the same PC to send email with the same settings ... email was sent & received by MS Outlook, so it had to be a Thunderbird specific problem. I thought that I might have to uninstall and reinstall Thunderbird at the risk of losing all email, add-ons & settings, but at 11:59 last night it began to work. No idea why or what caused it or fixed it, however perhaps it's something the Mozilla team can work on ahead of an update.

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (2)

Zenos
Zenos
more options

Well yes, the folders are in the account so if you delete the account the folders go too.

POP is for incoming and SMTP is used for outgoing, so the SMTP account is probably the one that needs attention.

This article:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recovering_deleted_mail_accounts

gives advice on recovering a deleted account.

A search on the web for "Thunderbird recover deleted account" will find several similar discussions, several on this site. This one:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1018966

Is one of the more detailed. Many of the others just send you to the first link above.

normgray
normgray Question owner
more options

Chosen Solution

I spent several hours making alterations to the settings, recreating the account, deleting accounts, speaking to the service provider per chance it was the connection, but nothing I did fixed the Send problem. I also check TCP/IP settings and then used MS Outlook on the same PC to send email with the same settings ... email was sent & received by MS Outlook, so it had to be a Thunderbird specific problem. I thought that I might have to uninstall and reinstall Thunderbird at the risk of losing all email, add-ons & settings, but at 11:59 last night it began to work. No idea why or what caused it or fixed it, however perhaps it's something the Mozilla team can work on ahead of an update.