Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

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.

A Local Folder disappears

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 16 views
  • Last reply by justinteim

justinteim
justinteim
more options

System: Thunderbird 78.11.0, Debian Linux 10.7.0

Background: I created several local folders, and setup filters to move incoming messages to them. One of them, named ALL_mail is a default for my principal mail address (by filter, all messages with the status "read" are moved into it). All went well....for a day.

Problem: Today, on starting Thunderbird, the ALL_mail folder does not appear in the left-hand pane, i.e. I cannot click on it to read any messages there. All the other Local Folders do appear.

Efforts to date: I closed TB, went to the profile, and confirmed that under Profile/Mail/LocalFolders the "ALL_mail" folder is there. The msf file, oddly had no content. I deleted the msf file, re-opened TB. The newly-created msf file was also empty, and the ALL_mail folder was not seen in the panel. I then created a new local folder "ALL_read", copied all the messages (Maildir format, so individual *.eml files) to the new folder. All went well (new folder appeared in the panel). However, when I closed and re-opened TB, once again the new folder is not found in the panel (though, again, it does exist in the profile).

Can anyone help ?

System: Thunderbird 78.11.0, Debian Linux 10.7.0 Background: I created several local folders, and setup filters to move incoming messages to them. One of them, named ALL_mail is a default for my principal mail address (by filter, all messages with the status "read" are moved into it). All went well....for a day. Problem: Today, on starting Thunderbird, the ALL_mail folder does not appear in the left-hand pane, i.e. I cannot click on it to read any messages there. All the other Local Folders do appear. Efforts to date: I closed TB, went to the profile, and confirmed that under Profile/Mail/LocalFolders the "ALL_mail" folder is there. The msf file, oddly had no content. I deleted the msf file, re-opened TB. The newly-created msf file was also empty, and the ALL_mail folder was not seen in the panel. I then created a new local folder "ALL_read", copied all the messages (Maildir format, so individual *.eml files) to the new folder. All went well (new folder appeared in the panel). However, when I closed and re-opened TB, once again the new folder is not found in the panel (though, again, it does exist in the profile). Can anyone help ?

All Replies (3)

Matt
Matt
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

why not try using a name like testALLmail. I would also refrain from using case as Thunderbird does not always have a good relationship with file systems that use case in file names as Linux does.

justinteim
justinteim Question owner
more options

Matt; I tried your solution, with no success. However, if TB is sensitive to file names, is it possible that "mail" in a local folder name creates this problem? So, I created a new local folder "ALL_here", closed TB, copied the mail messages into this new folder, deleted the msf file, then re-opened TB. Success ! (At least, so far.) I would not have thought about this without your comment. Thank you !!

justinteim
justinteim Question owner
more options

Well, the "solution" above worked for about a day. Again, when re-opening TB, a local folder is not seen in the panel. In the profile folder, it is "there", but the *.msf file is empty. I closed TB, deleted the folder's msf file, re-opened TB. It does re-create the msf file .... with 0 kb size.

Matt -- or anyone else -- can you please help ?