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Messages older than 3 mo have header OK but body missing. 2 other T-Bird email accounts OK.

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  • Last reply by christ1

Chip0628
Chip0628
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Suddenly all messages from more than about 3 months ago showed only the header but no body. Mail goes back 5 years. Two other email accounts on Thunderbird display fine. Then it got worse; I tried the "Repair" option on the Inbox and they all disappeared. Any way to recover? Thx.

Suddenly all messages from more than about 3 months ago showed only the header but no body. Mail goes back 5 years. Two other email accounts on Thunderbird display fine. Then it got worse; I tried the "Repair" option on the Inbox and they all disappeared. Any way to recover? Thx.

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christ1
christ1
  • Top 25 Contributor
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It sounds like your mail files are corrupted. First of all create a backup of your Thunderbird profile folder. https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profiles-tb#w_backing-up-a-profile

Then try to rebuild the index file of the troubled folder. Right-click the folder - Properties - Repair Folder

Note: depending on the corruption this may erase messages from the affected folder which cannot be recovered anymore. In that case you'd need to restore them from a recent backup done prior to the corruption.

Corruption is often caused by anti-virus software messing with Thunderbird mail files. It is therefore recommended to create an exception for the Thunderbird profile folder, so that the real-time scanner won't attempt to scan the profile with your mail.

For more information on the profile location see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird

Also see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keep_it_working_-_Thunderbird