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Deleting profile and files in Thunderbird

  • 3 iimpendulo
  • 1 inayo le ngxaki
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  • Impendulo yokugqibela ngu Stans

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Hi, I wanted to migrate my c drive Thunderbird emails from my c drive which was full to my d drive which had lots of space.

I followed your instructions and created a folder on the d drive, copied the files to it.

I then used profile manager to create a new profile to add my data. I did not go to the correct place for it to pick up my database so it created a new empty one. So i did it again and went to the correct folder this time and all my emails opened.

Now i thought i can delete the empty one and my c drive one as my d drive was working. So i deleted both profiles and data to recover disk space. Only to find I deleted my d drive data, my c drive data and was left with the empty profile on d

Disaster! I had lost all my emails and had no backup.

Is there any way to recover a profile manager deleted profile + files option?

Thanks for any help, i am devastated.

Andrew Sefton UK

Hi, I wanted to migrate my c drive Thunderbird emails from my c drive which was full to my d drive which had lots of space. I followed your instructions and created a folder on the d drive, copied the files to it. I then used profile manager to create a new profile to add my data. I did not go to the correct place for it to pick up my database so it created a new empty one. So i did it again and went to the correct folder this time and all my emails opened. Now i thought i can delete the empty one and my c drive one as my d drive was working. So i deleted both profiles and data to recover disk space. Only to find I deleted my d drive data, my c drive data and was left with the empty profile on d Disaster! I had lost all my emails and had no backup. Is there any way to recover a profile manager deleted profile + files option? Thanks for any help, i am devastated. Andrew Sefton UK

Isisombulu esikhethiweyo

Thunderbird is simply a client that fetches messages from the server where your mailbox is hosted. When you setup Thunderbird to access and retrieve those messages via POP, you also tell it what to do with the original copies of the messages on the server. It can either delete the server copies, or leave them on the server until you delete them from the server yourself. This setting in Thunderbird is located in Account Settings > Server Settings, and it's an important one because it determines whether the local copies stored on your pc are the only remaining copies of the messages or not. By default, and to my knowledge, Thunderbird is configured to leave the server copies intact until you delete them, but how the server handles its copies of the messages after they are fetched, depends on how the server has been configured by yourself or the email service provider. If you did not know of such settings, there is a good chance that those messages are still on the server, so you can always download them using Thunderbird afresh.

Log in to your email service provider's webmail interface via a web browser like Firefox, and check if the messages are there or not.

Funda le mpendulo kwimeko leyo 👍 2

All Replies (3)

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Did you leave the server copies intact?

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Not sure I understand. I thought all copies were local on my c and d drive?

Where are the server copies?

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Isisombululo esiKhethiweyo

Thunderbird is simply a client that fetches messages from the server where your mailbox is hosted. When you setup Thunderbird to access and retrieve those messages via POP, you also tell it what to do with the original copies of the messages on the server. It can either delete the server copies, or leave them on the server until you delete them from the server yourself. This setting in Thunderbird is located in Account Settings > Server Settings, and it's an important one because it determines whether the local copies stored on your pc are the only remaining copies of the messages or not. By default, and to my knowledge, Thunderbird is configured to leave the server copies intact until you delete them, but how the server handles its copies of the messages after they are fetched, depends on how the server has been configured by yourself or the email service provider. If you did not know of such settings, there is a good chance that those messages are still on the server, so you can always download them using Thunderbird afresh.

Log in to your email service provider's webmail interface via a web browser like Firefox, and check if the messages are there or not.