Mozilla VPN is currently experiencing an outage. Our team is actively working to resolve the issue. Please check the status page for real-time updates. Thank you for your patience.

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

i lost all my archived mail

  • 2 ŋuɖoɖowo
  • 1 masɔmasɔ sia le esi
  • 4 views
  • Nuɖoɖo mlɔetɔ martin353

more options

Arrgghh!

Thunderbird started to behave really weird n my mac since the update to Ventura. It was very slow, and i could not delete mails anymore, nor could i delete old profiles.

So i backed up everything and reinstalled. Usually I could just copy .msf files into the new 'local' folder and i would have my mails structured and archived again. Not this time. When I open Thunderbird it's not there and what is worse: the files have also disappeared from the 'local' folder.

So now the situation is: I have the newest Thunderbird, and all my archives with mails, including ongoing things about work, are gone. And it still is extremely slow and does not quit by key command. What is going on?

thanx for any help.

Arrgghh! Thunderbird started to behave really weird n my mac since the update to Ventura. It was very slow, and i could not delete mails anymore, nor could i delete old profiles. So i backed up everything and reinstalled. Usually I could just copy .msf files into the new 'local' folder and i would have my mails structured and archived again. Not this time. When I open Thunderbird it's not there and what is worse: the files have also disappeared from the 'local' folder. So now the situation is: I have the newest Thunderbird, and all my archives with mails, including ongoing things about work, are gone. And it still is extremely slow and does not quit by key command. What is going on? thanx for any help.

All Replies (2)

more options

MSF file have only even been an index into the local copies store, or if you have setting for no local copies it is loaded directly from the mail server (IMAP) In neither case should they ever be required. Generally they are considered a cache and are routinely deleted to fix issues with the display of local mail, even the fix option on the right click properties menu simply rebuilds those MSF filers from the source. If you do not have the source than they will rebuild empty.

As far as local folders go (as in the account) the MSF files contain no mail at all, only the information about the mail to populate the message lists. Clicking on a message in the list will access another file entirely for the message contents.

more options

Thank you, Matt! What i could do is simply restore the addressbook and locally stored emails and their registration from Time Machine. I replaced the newly installed files with the old ones. I am lacking 24 hours of mail but that is a huge difference to loosing everything!

thank you for your concern! Appreciated.