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Opening emails in Local Folders on my C drive using Explorer in Windows 11

  • 2 replies
  • 0 have this problem
  • 67 views
  • Last reply by davidob1996

davidob1996
davidob1996
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How do I open emails in Local Folders using Explorer in Windows 11? I know they should be in C:\users\[user]\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles. Btw, the AppData folder only showed after I told Explorer to show Hidden files; any help should note this. I found that folder with 2 subfolders; 1 was iup3xrv2.default-release which seemed to have the only relevant content - Mail\2023 and \2023.msf. Those appear to be the Local Folder (2023) I set up to receive my archived emails. But when I tried to open them, an email opened with an attachment that Thunderbird could not open. I would like to be able to access the archived emails through Explorer so I can mass delete, search, rename, see file size etc. Please explain and help. Thanks.

How do I open emails in Local Folders using Explorer in Windows 11? I know they should be in C:\users\[user]\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles. Btw, the AppData folder only showed after I told Explorer to show Hidden files; any help should note this. I found that folder with 2 subfolders; 1 was iup3xrv2.default-release which seemed to have the only relevant content - Mail\2023 and \2023.msf. Those appear to be the Local Folder (2023) I set up to receive my archived emails. But when I tried to open them, an email opened with an attachment that Thunderbird could not open. I would like to be able to access the archived emails through Explorer so I can mass delete, search, rename, see file size etc. Please explain and help. Thanks.

All Replies (2)

david
david
  • Top 10 Contributor
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That is a compressed file, known as mbox format, and Explorer cannot, by itself, do what you want. I am unsure on why you don't use Thunderbird to do that.

davidob1996
davidob1996 Question owner
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Thank you David, but I want to be able to move the archived emails as a group to my new laptop (copy to external drive and from there to new laptop), mass delete, search, rename, see file size etc. When I find the files and click on them, Windows asks me what application to use to open them with. I select Thunderbird but they don't open.

I know I can open the emails within Thunderbird, but moving using Thunderbird is more cumbersome, doesn't show me how big the files are, etc. But if I have to use Thunderbird directly, that suffices. Thanks for your attention.