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Thunderbird deleted my inbox messages

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  • Last reply by Matt

jokelly
jokelly
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My Thunderbird Inbox Retention Policy is set to "Don't delete any messages" and "Always keep starred messages", but Thunderbird deleted 63 messages from my Inbox including starred messages. The attached screenshot shows the Activity Manager reporting the deletion at 5:43 PM [on 9/9/2022] and my Inbox folder property settings. All messages before 8/28/2022 were deleted so some of the messages were less than 2 weeks old. These messages were deleted from the Thunderbird application and on my provider's IMAP Mail Server but not on my phone.

When I manually delete messages using Thunderbird; they are moved to the Trash folder in the application, and to the Trash folder on my provider's IMAP Mail Server, and to the trash folder on my phone. These messages were not deleted using any other device.

I was running Thunderbird 102.2.1 (20220831174222) installed on September 6, 2022.

What setting in Thunderbird would cause this to happen and how should I change the setting to ensure this never happens again? Is there a way to restore emails deleted by Thunderbird?

My Thunderbird Inbox Retention Policy is set to "Don't delete any messages" and "Always keep starred messages", but Thunderbird deleted 63 messages from my Inbox including starred messages. The attached screenshot shows the Activity Manager reporting the deletion at 5:43 PM [on 9/9/2022] and my Inbox folder property settings. All messages before 8/28/2022 were deleted so some of the messages were less than 2 weeks old. These messages were deleted from the Thunderbird application and on my provider's IMAP Mail Server but not on my phone. When I manually delete messages using Thunderbird; they are moved to the Trash folder in the application, and to the Trash folder on my provider's IMAP Mail Server, and to the trash folder on my phone. These messages were not deleted using any other device. I was running Thunderbird 102.2.1 (20220831174222) installed on September 6, 2022. What setting in Thunderbird would cause this to happen and how should I change the setting to ensure this never happens again? Is there a way to restore emails deleted by Thunderbird?
Attached screenshots

All Replies (1)

Matt
Matt
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Most likely they were deleted because of an IMAP server policy. Like mail over a certain age is automatically deleted.

IMAP relies on the mail server to be a canonical reference, so if the mail change folder they will be deleted from their existing folder. If the server has a retention policy of deleting trash after say 10 days. There is no setting in Thunderbird that will override it. If you mail provider changes the reference number of an email, it will be deleted and a new copy with the new reference will be downloaded.

Fundamentally if you want fine grained control without exception of what occurs on your machine. IMAP is not for you. POP offer only local control. IMAP does not.