It appears my primary inbox has essentially been emptied by Norton AntiVirus. Is there a way to prompt Thunderbird to re-download emails from my server?
All my inbox messages didn't have anything in the bodies. After searching here I read to Right Click the inbox, select Properties and then Repair Folder. When I did this I ended up with only ONE message in my inbox when I originally had thousands. Reading further in the message thread this happened to others - it was suggested that perhaps an anti-virus program was at fault.
I did some thinking and just prior to this I did have a Norton Antivirus message in which it had found problem files - I simply told it to delete the files... Now it seems as though there may have been something associated with my primary inbox file and thus all my email bodies are gone...
I can deal with this as I usually filter important emails into other folders. Now, is there a way to prompt THunderbird to re-download all the read emails from my personal server?
Chosen solution
Try this:
In Thunderbird
- Help > Troubleshooting Information
- click on 'Show folder' button
a new window opens showing the contents of your profile folder name. (These are all the files and folders you would copy if creating a backup)
- Close Thunderbird now - this is important.
- Click on 'Mail' folder
- click on pop mail account name folder
- scroll down, locate and delete this file : popstate.dat
This file keeps a record of what has been downloaded. If you delete it, a new one will be created when you start up Thunderbird. It will be empty and so should start to download anything left on the server. It does depends sometimes on what the server allows; some servers may only allow eg: last 30 days, but most will allow the whole lot to be downloaded again.
Please report back on results.
Read this answer in context 👍 1All Replies (5)
Are they still on the server?
Is it a POP-connected account?
Yes, there are a ton of messages still on the server. It's my hosted server space.
This is a POP account currently
Modified by Cadfactor
Chosen Solution
Try this:
In Thunderbird
- Help > Troubleshooting Information
- click on 'Show folder' button
a new window opens showing the contents of your profile folder name. (These are all the files and folders you would copy if creating a backup)
- Close Thunderbird now - this is important.
- Click on 'Mail' folder
- click on pop mail account name folder
- scroll down, locate and delete this file : popstate.dat
This file keeps a record of what has been downloaded. If you delete it, a new one will be created when you start up Thunderbird. It will be empty and so should start to download anything left on the server. It does depends sometimes on what the server allows; some servers may only allow eg: last 30 days, but most will allow the whole lot to be downloaded again.
Please report back on results.
This worked well. Thanks so much. Of course, now I have duplicate messages in my filtered sub-folders but that's another issue for another day. Such is life when leaving so many old messages on the server.
There is an addon that can help with duplicates. Actually, there are two. I've not used either, but they both seem to get decent reviews.