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Hard drive crashed, can i access my email folders on thunderbird on the internet

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  • Last reply by Toad-Hall

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I had set up a number of email folders on thunderbird. My hard disk crashed and i have now re-set up thunderbird on the new drive. It has downloaded current emails in my inbox but has not downloaded the folder where i saved other important emails. Are these folders saved on the internet and if so how do i download them?

I had set up a number of email folders on thunderbird. My hard disk crashed and i have now re-set up thunderbird on the new drive. It has downloaded current emails in my inbox but has not downloaded the folder where i saved other important emails. Are these folders saved on the internet and if so how do i download them?

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If you previously had a Pop mail account, then Thunderbird could only get access to server Inbox to download emails. All emails would be stored in the Thunderbird Profile on harddrive. They would be stored in this location: Assuming windows OS: C:\Users\<Windows user name>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\<Profile name>\ Mail\pop mail account name

If you can access hardrive, then you can use an addon extension called ImportExportTools to import the mbox files(mbox files do not have an extension) back into a pop mail account or Local Folders mail account. You cannot import mbox files directly into an imap mail account.

If you cannot access old hardrive using it as an external hard drive and do not have any backup then you may have lost those emails.

If you previously used an Imap mail account then all emails would be stored on server and you may need to subscribe to see the folder on server. In Thunderbird

  • Right click on imap mail account and select 'Subscribe'
  • Click on 'Refresh;
  • select folder in list and click on 'Subscribe'
  • click on 'OK'