Thunderbird Emails.
Good evening.
Thunderbird updated today (12 November 2023). It has re-arranged my Local folders, splitting contents randomly into two Local Folders (read and blue labels). I don't seem to have lost anything, but the layout is hard to work with. I've tried to move folders from one local folder to another, but this cannot cope with subfolders. Additionally, when I open 'Trash' deleted Emails are not appearing - instead there is a list of folders that were previously in my Local folder. And for some reason, the new TBird has resurrected all the Emails I had previously deleted, and then deleted from 'Trash', going back for 14 years. The originals of these are, or maybe were, on a BT server - I am still a BT customer. How can I recover my previous Inbox Local folder layout without doing any damage please? Can I safely restore the previous settings before today's update? Thanks.
DAW
All Replies (6)
It would help if you could post an image of your Folder Pane.
Please note: 'Local Folders' is a default mail account name in Thunderbird. You mention 'local folders', but I'm not certain you are talking about the 'Local Folders' mail account.
Do you use a Pop account or an Imap mail account?
Thanks for your quick reply, Toad-Hall. My Email account is using POP Mail Server, with SMTP Outgoing Server
See attached photos, from the top of the Email left hand side pane downwards. So the red ‘local Folders’ used to house all yellow folders and their sub folders. #2 shows that what used to be at the top of the pane (from ‘Draft’s to ‘Trash’) has moved to the middle, and how ‘Trash’ now contains folders that belong in #1, but no individual Emails, as used to be the case after deletion. I’ve tried dragging this middle section to where it used to be without success. #3 shows the second ‘Local Folders’. What you can see in this at the top of this picture is the tail end of what’s in ‘Trash’. All this happened after TBird loaded immediately following the update, so it’s hard to see that the update didn’t cause the problems.
Best, DAW
OK - thanks for images.
It looks like you have 'View' > 'Folders' > 'Unified' selected.
That means the top 'Inbox' is a 'Unified Inbox' and it should contain all emails which are located in all Inboxes for all accounts. As you have two mail account - BT and Local Folders, that means both would be under 'Unified Inbox'
As you only have one BT account then you do not really need to use 'Unified' option. Please tell me if you really want to use 'Unified' folders.
So do this first and then we can see which folders are really in the wrong location. 'View' > 'Folders' and select 'All' Then 'View' > 'Folders' > and select the 'Unified' to uncheck that option.
Modified
Thanks again. I've unchecked the 'Unified' option and the result is attached. You'll see that the folders that were previously in the seond 'Local folders' heading are now in Trash. Some of the sub-folders do not belong to where they are now e.g. the 'BVW' sub-folder under 'Car'.
If I could crack the problem of how to move folders with their sub-folders to the main Local folder (you can see the tip of the folders contained therein at the top of the picture) I'd be home and dry, even if it would be a tedious buisness. I've tried closing the sub-folders but these are not then taken under the 'Move' command for the main folder. Nor will they move separately.
I've been using TBird since 2009 without any problems I can recall (apart from those caused by BT) so the present situation is rather baffling!
Any further suggestions much appreciated.
DAW
Do not move any folders from an Imap account into 'Local Folders' mail account.
To move any folder to be a top level folder in 'Local Folders' mail account. eg: you want to move 'ARC' from 'Local Folders' 'Trash' folder to be a top level folder in 'Local Folders' mail account. Left click and hold down on 'ARC' folder and drag it upwards until you are hovering over the account name 'Local Folders' - then release to drop into 'Local Folders'.
To move any folder to be a subfolder of another folder: If you have eg: 'BVW' as a sub folder of 'Car -General' but you want it as a subfolder to eg: Woodland Trust Left click and hold down on 'BVW' folder and drag it upwards until you are hovering over the folder called 'Woodland Trust' - then release to drop into 'Woodland Trust'.
Any folder you select to move will also move anything it contains which includes all of it's subfolders and emails contained therein.
Looks like problem solved, as per your advice. Thanks very much for your help Toad-Hall!
Best, DAW