Retrieve backed up emails after deleting account
About 6 weeks ago, I was forced to change my Thunderbird (v115.14.0) setting for my POP Outlook (formerly Hotmail) account to use OAuth2. Per the instructions, I backed up my profile, deleted the account and reinstalled it with the previous profile files, using the server name Outlook.office365.com as directed. I also have backups of the profile under appdata going back several years.
I now find that the only emails from that account are those received within the last 6 weeks. Under appdata\Thunderbird\Profiles..., I see three directories: Outlook.office365.com, Outlook.office365-1.com, and Outlook.office365-2.com, all of different sizes. Also, under localhost, I see an even larger Inbox, Sent, etc. that appear to contain at least one of the missing emails, so I suspect that that is the location of the missing mail.
This is complicated by the fact that I have an email account through another company that also uses the server Outlook.office365.com.
I've tried changing the local directory under the server settings for the Hotmail account to each of the different Outlook.office365.com directories, but I still cannot see the old emails.
Can you help me to retrieve the old emails and place them in the same account? Or failing that, at least make them available in some other way?
Thanks.
Chosen solution
Thanks, David! That worked. In fact, I didn't have to go to the second step. I simply used the importexporttools to import all of the mboxes in the localhost directory, and that restored all of my inbox, sent, junk and trash from the missing Hotmail account going back to 2007.
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First, I suggest you identify the accounts for the office365 accounts. Click 'server settings' for each account that uses outlook.office365.com and look at the bottom line that points to local directory. Assuming you have three such accounts, you will see one pointing to the outlook.office365.com, one pointing to outlook.office365.com-1, and another to the -2. That will help you confirm which account is using each. Since you have the prior messages backed up, you can merge them with the current account,and it is a two-step process. You need the importexporttools addon for this. - create local folder for old inbox - highlight and rightclick and select importexport option to import mbox. select and click ok. - now highlight again, rightclick and select importexport option to export as eml. - now, highlight the accounts INBOX, rightclick and select importexport option to import eml. select the emls and click ok - repeat this for sent folder and any other saved folders. - once done, you can delete local folders.
Chosen Solution
Thanks, David! That worked. In fact, I didn't have to go to the second step. I simply used the importexporttools to import all of the mboxes in the localhost directory, and that restored all of my inbox, sent, junk and trash from the missing Hotmail account going back to 2007.
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