How can I recover my previous messages, local folders, and draft messages?

You'd need to restore them from a backup of your Thunderbird profile created prior to the Win re-install.

Did you choose one of the options for Windows 10 preserving your data (e.g., reset, refresh, or possibly similar terms)? You can check for a folder named

C:\Windows.old\Users\your-username\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird

If you do not immediately see AppData, make sure Windows shows hidden files and folders.
To change that setting, see this article (hopefully it's similar in Windows 10): http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/show-hidden-files

Does such a folder exist?

Thunderbird does not offer you the option of creating the program files folder anywhere but on the C:/ drive

1. You can move the Thunderbird profile to another drive than C: if you want to. The only thing required on the C: drive is the profiles.ini file, which tells Thunderbird about the name and the path to your actual profile.
2. There is nothing which prevents you from copying your profile folder to another drive. This is called a backup.
   

https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data#w_backing-up-a-profile

I realise that if I had known the system was going to crash, I might have backed up the profile somewhere safe, but that is hindsight and does not help me now.

There are people who only learn to create backups the hard way.

Dear Chris. Thank you for taking the time to reply to my query. I confess that I did not make a backup of the Thunderbird profile for two reasons. Firstly, it is not apparent anywhere that I can see in the Thunderbird application as to how and what one should backup. Secondly, as I mentioned all my 'working files' including Eudora are backed up on a second (\D:) drive. Having moved that drive across several computers over the years (with additional backups on to DVD ROM) I am still able to open files created up to twenty years ago. For example, I can open any of the messages that I kept in various Eudora sub-folders, even though I have not used the program for over 12 months. It was a simple matter to install Eudora to the second drive, unlike Thunderbird.

Additionally to the loss of the subfolders and retained messages in TB, I now find that I can not save any sent messages or draft messages (I get a ribbon tape telling me that a message is being sent to the 'sent' folder, but this does not cease at any time, even if left for several hours. Strangely though, if I open the 'sent' folder, I do find messages there. They were sent between 3rd February and 18th April this year. Nothing since though. The 'drafts' folder is empty. The 'deleted' folder does contain messages discounted during the last few days. Why can sent or draft messages now be stored?

If I get into my mailbox at the server via my tablet or phone, I can read messages received many months ago. How can I open up these formerly received messages in the current installation of TB?

Finally, I have followed the instructions on locating the profile folder. It seems that the entire folder and subfolders should be copied to the new location. Correct?

To summarise, it seems that there is no way of recovering the lost data, but if I can get access to the messages still in my server, I may be able to recover the original messages. It is annoying to find that some of the sent messages are accessible, but not all of them. Thank you for your help, which is appreciated even if it does not solve my problem. Keith. PS. As a retired IT lecturer, I have always been aware of the importance of backups, but as usual, there is no way of dealing with poorly thought out software that does not make it obvious and easy to make required back up copies. I suspect that few users make appropriate backup of Thunderbird files.

It is the prerogative of all computer users to take backups for the data they deem important. Thunderbird's profile is pretty much portable and there's absolutely no reason why a user wouldn't make a backup copy of it, except genuine lack of knowledge on the importance of backing up not just data, but the system itself. We see a lot of profile related issues that could easily and quickly be rectified if a backup was in place, but then again, some people only learn the hard way.

How is the account configured, i.e IMAP or POP? What are the message downloading settings currently in place for the account? By default, Thunderbird downloads ALL the messages from the server. If using IMAP, you should be seeing all the messages on the server regardless of whether they are downloaded in full for offline access or not. You should be seeing all the folders that are on the server, including the sent folder. Reconfigure that account for IMAP access to be able to see all server messages from Tbird, and to download them to your computer if you so wish, which Tbird does by default.

Stans. Thank you for the reply. My account is configured for IMAP. But, I can only see the recent messages in TB. If I use a different email client - eg on my Ipad or smart phone, I can read messages going much further back. If I could download those messages to TB, then at least I would have recovered some of the material that I wanted to retain.

This does not account for the fact that I can also read 'sent' messages between the 3rd February and 18th of April, but not before or after those dates. I can only read locally deleted messages after the PC repair and am unable to save any messages to either the 'sent' or the 'drafts' folder.

I appreciate your comments regarding creating backups, but all other software that I use allows data files to be stored in a location of the user's choice. Thunderbird does not make that easy or apparent. I want to be able to a) store my retained messages on a second drive, b) to be able to access those messages either through my email client or by a standard text reader c)to be able to store attachments in a location of choice ( I know that in theory one is supposed to be able to do that with TB, but in practice, it fails to work.) d) to know that should it be necessary to update the PC, or o.s. or the email client the mails are still retained elsewhere.

Keith.

Let's confirm first, the contents of your mailbox through your email provider's webmail interface, not any other client, using a browser on your computer.

Curiouser and curiouser! My ISP recommends mail2web as the online email application. However, when I enter my details, the dialogue box freezes as soon as I have typed in my password. See picture.

Keith

Your ISP has there own webmail service, mail2web is a third-party service. Go to https://www.plus.net/help/email-guides/how-to-use-webmail/ and https://webmail.plus.net/ is the link for the Plusnet webmail. In future screenshot attachments, please hide/mask the username part of your email address (the part before the @ sign).

Dear Stans. Thank you for the pointer to the Plusnet webmail service. Also the advice on masking the username. Mea Culpa. No sign of earlier messages on the Plusnet site however. They are still viewable on my tablet/mobile phone, so perhaps I can forward them to myself and recover them that way.

However, I am still unable to recover any of my local folders and contents, nor has Thunderbird stored more than a small number of attachments in the folder I created to do exactly that (on my secondary drive).

Regards Keith

No sign of earlier messages on the Plusnet site however. They are still viewable on my tablet/mobile phone, so perhaps I can forward them to myself and recover them that way.

This confirms that the messages that you aren't seeing from Tbird are also missing on the server. Those that are still viewable on the tablet and mobile are just cached copies then, or are the actual messages if those devices are using POP instead of IMAP. You could try forwarding them to yourself.

However, I am still unable to recover any of my local folders and contents, nor has Thunderbird stored more than a small number of attachments in the folder I created to do exactly that (on my secondary drive).

You could try running data recovery software such as Recuva and see if it can find any of the lost files, but since the drive on which they resided has been in use, starting with a reinstall of Windows, I would not hold much hope of recovering them intact even if recovery software finds traces of them. The only sure way of recovering them is from a backup, of which none exists.

Regarding the storing of sent messages and drafts in their respective folders, go to Tools > Account Settings > Copies & Folders. For sent messages, tick the Place a copy in checkbox then choose the Sent folder of the account. Do the same for drafts.

Thanks for those suggestions, Stans. I will see what I can do with the cached messages. I did find some 'sent' messages sitting on the server, which I have forwarded to myself successfully. I will investigate 'Recuva' and see what turns up.

Regarding storing current messages, I had checked the storage format in the account settings and can confirm that they are already set correctly to store in the appropriate folders. TB seems to be ignoring that, just as it is ignoring the instructions to save attachments to my secondary drive. (In fact, if it had done so from the start, I would not be so aggrieved by the lost files as it is often the attachments that are of value. I have backup software that makes copies of my data drive on a regular basis, but does not make backups of software that is normally readily downloadable at any time, if required. There is nothing in the Thunderbird user instructions that I have found that makes emphasis on backing up the user profile. Keith

Thunderbird's user instructions (Help) provides info on backing up the user profile, but the program itself doesn't alert you to the same, but Windows does alert you to configure backups for your system and user data, and a system backup would include installed programs like Thunderbird and its data. I'm surprised you never questioned where Thunderbird stores its data, even after having created local folders within the program and storing your emails in them. No matter, that is now water under the bridge and I can only hope that hindsight doesn't cost you valuable data again. Now that Windows 10 gets upgrades semi annually and monthly cummulative updates, a routine system backup is an absolute necessity. I won't go into details about that because it is beyond the scope of this forum, but there's a wealth of information about the same just waiting for you to find it. https://www.google.com/search?q=windows+system+backup

It is not that I did not question where Thunderbird stored the messages, Stans, just that I could not find where it was. The filenames were of no assistance, bearing no correlation to the names I had given the local folders. I tried to set up a folder to store attachments, but this only stored the first dozen or so files. They, are in fact still available on my d:\ drive, but unfortunately the great majority of really useful attachments are not. I take you point about a system backup, having instead only relied on backups of my data files. Of course following the repair to my system, I have to re-install and set up all my applications, including the backup software. I have a similar problem in that all my Firefox book marks were trashed as well (Why Firefox moved from storing bookmarks in a .html file, I do not know. That file was easy to find, and indeed, could be stored on the backup drive, whereas I have no idea where it is now kept - presumably in AppData somewhere, but what is it called?) Thanks anyway for your assistance. I think it is probably time to call a halt to this discussion. Regards. Keith.

I'm glad you asked about Firefox's data. One way you can backup Firefox data is by using a Firefox account to sync them to it. Another way is to backup the actual profile folder which contains all that data, pretty much like Thunderbird does. See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile

You could backup the whole profile folder as it is, instead of going to pains to backup and restore individual data files. I have come to appreciate the portability of Thunderbird and Firefox profiles and the fact that user data is stored in a single location. This makes backup and migration a breeze, something you can't say for a lot of software. Bookmarks are stored in a file called places.sqlite, and the bookmarks manager also provides you the option to export them to an html file which you can import for a quick restoration.