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Recover emails after compacting the trash folder?

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 7 views
  • Last reply by eddyholler

eddyholler
eddyholler
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Hi there,

looks like I made a dumb mistake permanently deleting all the emails that I had in the trash folder by compacting them and now I'm wondering whether there's any chance to recover them.

For a week now, Thunderbird (v78.6.1) constantly reminded me that there were over 200 mb worth of emails to be compacted in my trash folder. Today, I made the mistake of clicking "OK" instead of Cancel and Thunderbird compacted said emails. My problem is that I actually also misused the trash folder for emails, that while not of immediate interest when I received still held some kind of importance. In other words, if possible, then I'd like to get them back. Any chance or am I out of luck? Unfortunately, I don't have any backup of my Thunderbird folder. Installed a tool called "Recovery Tool for Mozilla Thunderbird", but it crashes after launch.

Thank you.

greetz

Eddy

Hi there, looks like I made a dumb mistake permanently deleting all the emails that I had in the trash folder by compacting them and now I'm wondering whether there's any chance to recover them. For a week now, Thunderbird (v78.6.1) constantly reminded me that there were over 200 mb worth of emails to be compacted in my trash folder. Today, I made the mistake of clicking "OK" instead of Cancel and Thunderbird compacted said emails. My problem is that I actually also misused the trash folder for emails, that while not of immediate interest when I received still held some kind of importance. In other words, if possible, then I'd like to get them back. Any chance or am I out of luck? Unfortunately, I don't have any backup of my Thunderbird folder. Installed a tool called "Recovery Tool for Mozilla Thunderbird", but it crashes after launch. Thank you. greetz Eddy

All Replies (2)

Matt
Matt
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
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as compacting does not remove emails, only those that are already gone from sight and builds a new index I would guess your mail was already missing before the compact, like about the time you started getting the compact message. did you empty the trash on your phone a week ago? IMAP is synchronized. Or get a message from your anti virus about some infection it offered to "fix" for you?

eddyholler
eddyholler Question owner
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Thanks for the reply and sorry for taking so long to get back. Maybe the email was gone at that time, I didn't check, though I assumed that it wasn't. Hm, I didn't empty the trash, no.