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

Importing Thunderbird messages

  • 1 reply
  • 0 have this problem
  • 19 views
  • Last reply by Matt

more options

In the course of having my computer rebuilt, the techs had to wipe the C: drive and install a fresh, up-to-date copy of Windows 11. Needless to say, I have had to rebuild my software, one program at a time. After setting up Thunderbird, I was able to import the mail from a second machine on my network. However, that left me missing a large chunk of mail from earlier in 2023 and later 2022. In looking through all the profiles, I find that the messages whose date matches my missing mail are in appdata/roaming/thunderbird/profiles/default.sja. That directory contains two subdirectories, cache2 and mail. Under cache2 I have directories called doomed, which is empty, and entries, which has all of the messages whose dates match those that I am missing. My question is really simple -- how do I get those messages into my current user profile? I've tried the import tool, but that fails. I am at my wits end on this one. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!!

In the course of having my computer rebuilt, the techs had to wipe the C: drive and install a fresh, up-to-date copy of Windows 11. Needless to say, I have had to rebuild my software, one program at a time. After setting up Thunderbird, I was able to import the mail from a second machine on my network. However, that left me missing a large chunk of mail from earlier in 2023 and later 2022. In looking through all the profiles, I find that the messages whose date matches my missing mail are in appdata/roaming/thunderbird/profiles/default.sja. That directory contains two subdirectories, cache2 and mail. Under cache2 I have directories called doomed, which is empty, and entries, which has all of the messages whose dates match those that I am missing. My question is really simple -- how do I get those messages into my current user profile? I've tried the import tool, but that fails. I am at my wits end on this one. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!!

All Replies (1)

more options

The cache should be in local, not roaming.

Mail is the storage folder for pop mail accounts.

There is no way to get cache data into a permanent storage. To be there it must be IMAP mail and setting in the account require no local copies be kept. Likewise to more than 10 years foilk have been identifying the partial copies of email in the mozmsg folders with the mozeml file extensions as their lost mail. It is not, just the first part that was saved separately for windows search to find.