Mozilla VPN is currently experiencing an outage. Our team is actively working to resolve the issue. Please check the status page for real-time updates. Thank you for your patience.

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

I am trying to retrieve folders- they do not appear in Thunderbird, but are on the hard drive.

  • 1 reply
  • 1 has this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by Toad-Hall

Podge
Podge
more options

1. I have used Thunderbird for 5 years or so, using at least 3 mail addresses at a time. I stow useful mails in folders and subfolders for reference. I regularly use Mozbackup. 2. Recently I found that one of the main folders was missing, a search of the hard drive revealed that the.msf folders are there, but I dont know how to restore them. 3. In an effort to retrieve them from a Mozbackup file, i found that email addresses 1,2 and 3 were available. This was not useful as email addresses 2 and 3 had been replaced by email addresses 4 and 5 3 years ago. (Mozbackup issue) 4. Thus I now have only folders from email 1 and all other from emails 4 and 5 have gone. Would be grateful for any help Graham, Cape Town, South Africa

1. I have used Thunderbird for 5 years or so, using at least 3 mail addresses at a time. I stow useful mails in folders and subfolders for reference. I regularly use Mozbackup. 2. Recently I found that one of the main folders was missing, a search of the hard drive revealed that the.msf folders are there, but I dont know how to restore them. 3. In an effort to retrieve them from a Mozbackup file, i found that email addresses 1,2 and 3 were available. This was not useful as email addresses 2 and 3 had been replaced by email addresses 4 and 5 3 years ago. (Mozbackup issue) 4. Thus I now have only folders from email 1 and all other from emails 4 and 5 have gone. Would be grateful for any help Graham, Cape Town, South Africa

All Replies (1)

Toad-Hall
Toad-Hall
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

re: 2. Recently I found that one of the main folders was missing, a search of the hard drive revealed that the.msf folders are there, but I dont know how to restore them.

  • .msf files are indexing files. They do not contain emails.

If there is eg: Inbox file with no extension is an mbox file; this is the file with emails. Inbox.msf is the indexing file. Does not contain emails.

If you have imap mail account, then you would need to synchronise a subscribed folder to get a copy into your thunderbird Profile. Then it will create an mbox file. If the Folder was only a subscribed folder, but not synchronised, then there will not be any emails stored in your profile folder. Subscribed foldres only download headers and when you select to view an email, a copy of the folder or xx emails if that option is selected, is downloaded to a temporary folder which is used to get quicker access to emails. These emails are not stored in your profile, they are stored on the server.


So, please tell us what you use. re: mail accounts 1, 4 and 5 Are the mail accounts IMAP or Pop?

If mail account 4 and 5 were IMAP mail accounts, then these emails will be stored on the server. So create new IMAP mail account and you should see all emails on the server.