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i had to reinstall thunderbird and now I have lost all previous information.

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  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by Toad-Hall

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I have lost all emails in my inbox. sent box and all folders on Thunderbird . Can anyone help? Many Thanks. starter

I have lost all emails in my inbox. sent box and all folders on Thunderbird . Can anyone help? Many Thanks. starter

All Replies (2)

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Perhaps Thunderbird just is not looking in the correct place.

Make hidden folders visible.

In Thunderbird

  • Help > Troubleshooting Information
  • click on 'Show folder' button
  • a new window opens showing Profile folder.

You need to check two things. 1. Are there two Profiles? see image: In my case, when I click on the 'Profiles' directory, it shows I have one Profile called xxxxxx.default and I am open on that profile. If you have two profiles, select the other profile or If there is only one Profile:

click on 'Mail' folder (if you had a pop mail account) or 'IMAPMail' folder if it was an Imap mail account.

2.How many mail accounts are there? You should see Local folders plus others. click on a mail account name to see folder names. Do you see a mail account which has all the correct folder names. You can check to see if a file (not .msf) has emails. Right click file and choose to open with 'Notepad'.

When you locate the mail account which has the emails, make a note of the Profile name and the mail account name. Close the window.

In Thunderbird

  • Tools > Account Settings > Server Settings for the mail account

bottom right look for 'Local directory'...see image. click on 'Browse' and navigate to the correct Profile and mail account name and click on Open. It should be some thing like this:

  • C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\Mail\mail account name

then click on ok to save changes. close and reopen Thunderbird.

Modified by Toad-Hall

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check that you can see all the folders: View > Folders > All