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I've deleted and re-installed e-mail account on Thunderbird and have tried to copy backed up inbox, e-mail folders etc but they're not showing on Thunderbird.

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  • Last reply by christ1

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I've deleted and re-installed e-mail account on Thunderbird and have tried to copy backed up inbox, e-mail folders etc. Since posting this, and after a few hours of trying to understand what to do (!) I've managed to get the folders on Thunderbird, nested below the 'inbox'. However, when I click on a folder an error message is displayed saying 'the mail server for the account [account name] mailbox does not exist' ... it's as if the folder is pointing to the old mail server (I moved my e-mail from one provider to another earlier today). How do I get all the contents of the folder onto my new e-mail account + will these folders copy over to the webmail version of my account?

I've deleted and re-installed e-mail account on Thunderbird and have tried to copy backed up inbox, e-mail folders etc. Since posting this, and after a few hours of trying to understand what to do (!) I've managed to get the folders on Thunderbird, nested below the 'inbox'. However, when I click on a folder an error message is displayed saying 'the mail server for the account [account name] mailbox does not exist' ... it's as if the folder is pointing to the old mail server (I moved my e-mail from one provider to another earlier today). How do I get all the contents of the folder onto my new e-mail account + will these folders copy over to the webmail version of my account?

Moify modificouno o

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I've deleted and re-installed e-mail account

What is the account type - POP or IMAP?

I ... have tried to copy backed up inbox, e-mail folders etc.

Please explain in detail what you did, i.e. which file(s) to where exactly?

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Hi, Thanks for your help. The account type is IMAP. Once I found the files (which took me a while) I then ... - copied the folder cyh1mv04.default onto my hard drive - deleted my Thunderbird account - re-installed Thunderbird with new server settings - closed Thunderbird - copied the folder cyh1mv04.default so it's now in ... C:\Users\markmurphy\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\cyh1mv04.default\ImapMail\imap.iomartmail.com - re-opened Thunderbird - I could see the folders but when I clicked on any one of them I got the error message

That was yesterday; today I've gone back into Thunderbird and I can't see any of the folders. I've re-checked the server settings and the Local Directory address is pointing to the location noted above so I don't understand what's happened now.

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With IMAP this is the expected behavior. You'll have to restore the mail files to your 'Local Folders' and then upload the messages to the server by copying them to the desired IMAP folder.

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I'm not having much success with this. I've created 2 new folders in Thunderbird ('Test 1' and 'Test 2') so I can now see the file type that it creates ('msf' files) and which directory they go into. I then sent an e-mail from another account to the 'problem' account then moved the e-mails into the new folders in Thunderbird so I can now see the e-mail file types (just called 'file') in the directory. So it appears that the folder is an 'msf' file and the e-mail is just a 'file'. On that basis it would appear to be logical that I can just copy the 'msf' files and the 'file' files from my local folder back into the e-mail folder ... however, I've done that with one of the 'old' msf files and the 'file' files (containing the e-mails) into the e-mail directory ... but they're not showing on Thunderbird. So, unsure where to go from here. Can you help at all? Thanks,

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it appears that the folder is an 'msf' file and the e-mail is just a 'file'.

.msf files are index files, and they get created automatically for each mail file.

I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with creating test folders. As said before, you'll need to restore your backed up mail files underneath 'Local Folders' while Thunderbird is closed. Do one file at a time. How is that a problem?