more info

there are 3 separate .txt files from 3 separate emails. size is about 350 mb for 1, 160 mb for file 2 and 227 mb for the third. The files can been seen in notebook (but of course all the graphic elements look like gobbledygook), I need to restore these for a boss at my work, the email headers and content and all of that are still in there, thanks again, this has me pulling whats left of my hair out

What happens if you change the extension from txt to eml?

yea, that doesn't fix it, I changed the extension, then tried to import the message, thinderbird replied with importing; however, it failed, and nothing was imported into thunderbird. Also tried with outlook and that didnt work either, thanks for your assistance

the files came from yahoo directly as a .txt file

Don't import the eml file, just use File/Open Saved Message, or drag it from Explorer and drop it in a TB folder.

same result on the drag over and the load saved, get the first message, cant get anything else

this was a dump from yahoo of email accounts. thanks for the help on this, I really mean that

Rather than try to import the mail that was 'exported' from Yahoo, it might make more sense to set up the Yahoo account in TB so the messages can be downloaded to TB in a readable form.

http://www.ghacks.net/2013/10/10/access-yahoo-mail-using-pop3-imap/

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Yahoo

Otherwise, you may be able to separate the large text file into separate files, corresponding to each message, and change txt to eml.