Is it possible to recover email archives from an /archives.sbd folder? I think this is the only remnant of a crashed drive.
I lost both my system and backup drives earlier this year. I am attempting to recover my mail, and have discovered that no backups are available. I did find a "copied" file structure that was apparently part of Thunderbird that has two possibly recoverable trees.
Within this folder, one is /imap.email_address which contains numerous, non-empty *.mozmsgs and *.sbd folders. The other branch is /Local Folders that contains an empty /Archives.mozmsgs and a /Archives.sbd with /*.mozmsgs (empty), *.msg and * files that are non-empty.
This is the best I can do to explain the available fragmentary file structure. Is there any way to recover the email that may still exist in these folders and files?
Thanks for any help.
Chosen solution
The important files are those without an extension. So, typically, Inbox is a file that represents the Inbox folder in an account in Thunderbird.
Those sbd files list subdirectories so in themselves do not contain useful data, but they do tell you which files you need. You can probably open the sbd file in a text editor to discover the folder structure.
However, I'd set about finding all the files without extensions, then copying those into the Local Folders branch of your current working profile. You should set your file Explorer to show the full filename, so you can tell sent and sent.msf apart, and you'll need it set to show hidden files.
Somewhat perversely, the best guide to identifying the files you need is to search the broken profile for .msf files. Each one you find, such as Inbox.msf should have a partner file, which would be Inbox in the case of this example. Don't worry about copying the msf files as they will be rebuilt when needed.
The mozmsgs files may also be useful to you, as they will contain remnants of messages if the procedure outlined above doesn't work out. But mining them for the data they contain may not be straightforward.
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Chosen Solution
The important files are those without an extension. So, typically, Inbox is a file that represents the Inbox folder in an account in Thunderbird.
Those sbd files list subdirectories so in themselves do not contain useful data, but they do tell you which files you need. You can probably open the sbd file in a text editor to discover the folder structure.
However, I'd set about finding all the files without extensions, then copying those into the Local Folders branch of your current working profile. You should set your file Explorer to show the full filename, so you can tell sent and sent.msf apart, and you'll need it set to show hidden files.
Somewhat perversely, the best guide to identifying the files you need is to search the broken profile for .msf files. Each one you find, such as Inbox.msf should have a partner file, which would be Inbox in the case of this example. Don't worry about copying the msf files as they will be rebuilt when needed.
The mozmsgs files may also be useful to you, as they will contain remnants of messages if the procedure outlined above doesn't work out. But mining them for the data they contain may not be straightforward.
Modified by Zenos
Thanks Zenos! I managed to recover quite a bit with your knowledge.