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Thunderbird 91.2.0 for Mac lost at least one local folder

  • 6 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 25 views
  • Last reply by sfhowes

alex912
alex912
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I have been using TBird for years, generally without major problems. But, after updating TBird to the latest version, 92.1.0 for Mac, it completely lost at least one local folder. I have no way to tell what it lost, as there is no trace. The folder I am referring to simply does not exist anymore in TBird. I re-started the Mac; same results. Searching all emails I found a large number of emails that *are still in* the missing local folder, and I can read them, but the folder itself does not exist. I do NOT know of any way to search for all emails that are (were) in that folder, since the search engine also does not recognize the existence of the folder.

Surely this must be a bug in TBird. Please tell me how to recover from this nasty problem!

I have been using TBird for years, generally without major problems. But, after updating TBird to the latest version, 92.1.0 for Mac, it completely lost at least one local folder. I have no way to tell what it lost, as there is no trace. The folder I am referring to simply does not exist anymore in TBird. I re-started the Mac; same results. Searching all emails I found a large number of emails that *are still in* the missing local folder, and I can read them, but the folder itself does not exist. I do NOT know of any way to search for all emails that are (were) in that folder, since the search engine also does not recognize the existence of the folder. Surely this must be a bug in TBird. Please tell me how to recover from this nasty problem!

Chosen solution

This is weird. After searching and poking around in the finder for some key mailbox files, suddenly they did appear in the Archive-general folder. They weren't visible there a minute ago. After seeing them in the Archive-general folder, I restarted TBird and they appeared! They were not there a few minutes earlier.

Is this a MacOS bug?

Also, MacOS labels all of the mbox files as Unix executables. Is that to be expected?

Good news! It works now. But I have no idea why it didn't work and then suddenly started working again.

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All Replies (6)

alex912
alex912 Question owner
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Turns out it lost several folders.

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 25 Contributor
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Help/More Troubleshooting, Profile Folder, Open in Finder, close TB, open Mail/Local Folders. Do you see mbox files, large files with no extension, named after the missing folders, beside like-named .msf files, e.g. Myfolder and Myfolder.msf?

alex912
alex912 Question owner
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Thank you. I looked as you instructed. The missing folders are not there. However, I searched within "Local folders" and found a large file with no extension of the name of the main missing folder. The finder says it is a "Unix Executable File". The search shows that this file is in a subfolder called Archive-general.sbd. What does that mean? How did it get there? Is this something I can correct manually, and if so, how?

alex912
alex912 Question owner
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Also, when I looked in Archive-general.sbd in the finder, the file in question is NOT visible there.

alex912
alex912 Question owner
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Chosen Solution

This is weird. After searching and poking around in the finder for some key mailbox files, suddenly they did appear in the Archive-general folder. They weren't visible there a minute ago. After seeing them in the Archive-general folder, I restarted TBird and they appeared! They were not there a few minutes earlier.

Is this a MacOS bug?

Also, MacOS labels all of the mbox files as Unix executables. Is that to be expected?

Good news! It works now. But I have no idea why it didn't work and then suddenly started working again.

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 25 Contributor
more options

I don't have a mac, but in Windows the mbox files are of type File. They are essentially text files that can be viewed in a text editor. No idea why they would be defined as Unix executable.