Find a profile folder for thunderbird put back sent emails
I was told to uninstall the email account and then reinstall it and now I don't have any of my old sent or feceived mail. How do I find a thunderbird profile folder that should be saved to my IMAC to be able to retrieve old emails? No mail saved to the server. All wiped clean. Thunderebird stated that it saves mail to a file separate from thunderbird. I haven't been able to find the file on my IMAC. I have the old received emails from the account on my Iphone and can access them just fine.
Chosen solution
Thunderbird stores all personal data such as messages, address books, calendars and configuration settings in a hard drive folder called the Profile. This folder is separate from the installation of Thunderbird.
Profiles - Where Thunderbird stores your messages and other user data Profile folder - Thunderbird
Luckily for you, when you remove an e-mail account from Thunderbird, it doesn't delete the files from the hard drive for that e-mail account. Just for the reason of what you did.
Here are instructions for recovering those e-mails.
1. In Thunderbird, under "Local Folders", create a folder called "Recover" (right-click "Local Folders" and choose "New Folder"). Under the "Recover" folder, create a sub-folder called "Placeholder" (right-click "Recover" and choose "New Subfolder").
2. Find & open your Thunderbird Profile folder:
Select Help: Troubleshooting Information from the Thunderbird menu (either from the menu button , on the top right, or the normal menu at the top of the window.)
Under "Application Basics", beside "Profile Folder", click the "Show Profile" button. This will open a window showing the contents of your Thunderbird Profile folder.
3. Quit Thunderbird, but keep that window open showing your Thunderbird Profile folder.
4. Open the folder called "Mail". In that folder will be a folder called "Local Folders", and probably be two folders with the name of your POP server. One for the original account, and one for the new account you created. The new one will probably have a number after the name. Look into the folders to make sure which one is the old one.
5. Once you have figured out which folder has the original account, click on a file in that folder, then select all the files and folders from the folder by holding down the Command key and pressing the A key. Then copy those files to the clipboard by holding down the Command key and pressing the C key.
6. Now navigate to the "Local Folders" folder. In it, find the folder called "Recover.sbd", and open it. It will be empty.
7. Click in the empty "Recover.sbd" folder, then hold down the Command key and press the V key. This will paste all the files from the old account here.
8. Start Thunderbird. Your old e-mails will now be under the "Recover" folder in "Local Folders".
If you ever delete/uninstall a POP account again in the future, remember to first move all the e-mails from the account to your "Local Folders" first, so you will not lose them.
You may want to consider switching from POP to IMAP, so your e-mails are also kept on the server. For an explanation of POP vs IMAP, see http://www.pop2imap.com/
Read this answer in context 👍 2All Replies (1)
Chosen Solution
Thunderbird stores all personal data such as messages, address books, calendars and configuration settings in a hard drive folder called the Profile. This folder is separate from the installation of Thunderbird.
Profiles - Where Thunderbird stores your messages and other user data Profile folder - Thunderbird
Luckily for you, when you remove an e-mail account from Thunderbird, it doesn't delete the files from the hard drive for that e-mail account. Just for the reason of what you did.
Here are instructions for recovering those e-mails.
1. In Thunderbird, under "Local Folders", create a folder called "Recover" (right-click "Local Folders" and choose "New Folder"). Under the "Recover" folder, create a sub-folder called "Placeholder" (right-click "Recover" and choose "New Subfolder").
2. Find & open your Thunderbird Profile folder:
Select Help: Troubleshooting Information from the Thunderbird menu (either from the menu button , on the top right, or the normal menu at the top of the window.)
Under "Application Basics", beside "Profile Folder", click the "Show Profile" button. This will open a window showing the contents of your Thunderbird Profile folder.
3. Quit Thunderbird, but keep that window open showing your Thunderbird Profile folder.
4. Open the folder called "Mail". In that folder will be a folder called "Local Folders", and probably be two folders with the name of your POP server. One for the original account, and one for the new account you created. The new one will probably have a number after the name. Look into the folders to make sure which one is the old one.
5. Once you have figured out which folder has the original account, click on a file in that folder, then select all the files and folders from the folder by holding down the Command key and pressing the A key. Then copy those files to the clipboard by holding down the Command key and pressing the C key.
6. Now navigate to the "Local Folders" folder. In it, find the folder called "Recover.sbd", and open it. It will be empty.
7. Click in the empty "Recover.sbd" folder, then hold down the Command key and press the V key. This will paste all the files from the old account here.
8. Start Thunderbird. Your old e-mails will now be under the "Recover" folder in "Local Folders".
If you ever delete/uninstall a POP account again in the future, remember to first move all the e-mails from the account to your "Local Folders" first, so you will not lose them.
You may want to consider switching from POP to IMAP, so your e-mails are also kept on the server. For an explanation of POP vs IMAP, see http://www.pop2imap.com/
Modified by user1121639