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Import of Mail Messages from old profile fails

Chris Hughes
Chris Hughes
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I had to reinstall Windows 10 on my laptop, which then required me to reinstall Thunderbird. My old profile was backed up, so I just tried to import from the old profile into the new one. The Account Settings imported successfully, but it failed while importing the old Mail Messages. When I looked after Thunderbird restarted, it looks like it failed part way through importing the Local Folders. Everything after a certain point was just missing. I retried the import (Mail Messages only) to the same profile and it appeared to succeed, but only the top-level Local Folders contained mail messages. Any folder that had sub-folders was empty (except for the folder that it was in the middle of when it failed the first time). I tried to create a new profile and imported the Account Settings and, after a restart of Thunderbird, imported Mail Messages. Again, top-level Local Folders with no sub-folders had the old e-mails, but any Local Folder with sub-folders was empty. How do I get my backed-up e-mails back in the current installation of Thunderbird?

I had to reinstall Windows 10 on my laptop, which then required me to reinstall Thunderbird. My old profile was backed up, so I just tried to import from the old profile into the new one. The Account Settings imported successfully, but it failed while importing the old Mail Messages. When I looked after Thunderbird restarted, it looks like it failed part way through importing the Local Folders. Everything after a certain point was just missing. I retried the import (Mail Messages only) to the same profile and it appeared to succeed, but only the top-level Local Folders contained mail messages. Any folder that had sub-folders was empty (except for the folder that it was in the middle of when it failed the first time). I tried to create a new profile and imported the Account Settings and, after a restart of Thunderbird, imported Mail Messages. Again, top-level Local Folders with no sub-folders had the old e-mails, but any Local Folder with sub-folders was empty. How do I get my backed-up e-mails back in the current installation of Thunderbird?

Chosen solution

Are these POP accounts? If so, look into your old profile to see if the folders are there. They would be in the Mail/<account name> folder and subfolders. My suggestion is NOT to import the profile, but to use windows file explorer to copy the profile in (when TB is not running of course). I don't have more time tonight, but if that seems workable and you need assistance, we can review tomorrow. In summary, if the folders are in old profile, I think they can be restored.

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All Replies (2)

david
david
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Chosen Solution

Are these POP accounts? If so, look into your old profile to see if the folders are there. They would be in the Mail/<account name> folder and subfolders. My suggestion is NOT to import the profile, but to use windows file explorer to copy the profile in (when TB is not running of course). I don't have more time tonight, but if that seems workable and you need assistance, we can review tomorrow. In summary, if the folders are in old profile, I think they can be restored.

Chris Hughes
Chris Hughes Question owner
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Actually, it was an IMAP account, but it was the Local Folders (just on my computer, not on the server) I was having trouble accessing. I thought I'd tried just copying the files before and it didn't work, but either I didn't or I did something different this time, because it worked. Thanks.