Why not move their contents into Local Folders?

I already have these e-mails in local folders - don't seem to be able to edit / transfer to other accounts without logging in to the original account which I cannot do.

Leaving "as -is" means being either prompted for passwords or pop-ups informing me that the log-on has failed. One redundant account is fine . . . . multiple ones are irritating

Eventually I will delete these accounts but some are very old > 15years and have a lot of correspondence which was the reason for downloading to local folders before closing the accounts - who wants to pay ~ $7 per month for a legacy web mail account when I already have one free and five others via my current ISP

I don't understand. If they are truly in the Local Folders account then there is no reason for defunct servers to become involved.

As a security measure I do not allow passwords to be saved (in Thunderbird or anything else) so when logging into Thunderbird I am prompted for the mail server log-ins for each account in turn - Obviously any password will fail on a redundant account so I cancel the login. Likewise if I left an old password saved then as soon as I opened a folder in that account it would try to update and would remind me that the password had failed and to enter a new one. A minor irritation I agree but it must be possible to mark the accounts for offline working only.

I am quite happy to leave the local folders as they are - I can go back in and access material but I don't seem to be able to move these folders into another account without logging into the now defunct mail server account- I didn't want this to happen but my previous ISP kicked me off the system early and gave me a refund instead of letting the account expire at the month end.

I've been looking for ways to stop the pop-up prompts or alternatively export the contents of the folders - most export methods appear to have problems in that as soon as you generate a mass of mail in a different format its not as easy to search it.

There is an account called Local Folders in Thunderbird, which is local and has no connection whatsoever to any servers (as regards email.) You keep saying "local folders" (in lowercase) as if this might, for you, just mean the local cache copies. Can we please be sure we're talking about the same thing?

And if your "local folders" are actually related to email accounts, are they POP, IMAP or a mix? You don't need a password to see or manage messages stored locally in a POP based account, so I'm starting to think you're using IMAP connected accounts.

Move messages into the Local Folders account in Thunderbird and they cannot invoke connections to servers, defunct or otherwise.

They are a Mix they were originally all IMAP linked accounts, but the vast bulk of the correspondence is in Local Folders - however not all was transferred into the Local Folders and I don't seem to be able to move the content of these folders into another account now without logging into the now defunct mail server account- As I said earlier I didn't want this to happen but my previous ISP kicked me off the system early and gave me a refund instead of letting the account expire at the month end.

I seem to be able to transfer single e-mails from local cache copies to Local Folders (albeit with the log-in pop up prompt ) I did try moving blocks of data across but this failed and I lost some e-mails so haven't tried it since. (better have the data than lose it) It may be that I panicked because the number of e-mails in the Local Folder did not increase but I have since found there is some duplication of e-mails in both folders- certainly transferring one by one creates a duplicate if it already exists

Are you saying that if I managed to move all the data from any local cache copies into the Local Folders then I could delete the accounts and it will not affect anything already in the Local Folders?

For Obvious reasons I have not tried this for fear of loss but that would be the answer to my problem - not much i need left in local cache copies so I may bite the bullet and chop them

I would try this:

1. Create a placeholder subfolder in Local Folders.
2. Close Thunderbird.
3. In your file manger, copy the relevant mbox (extensionless files: Inbox, Sent etc) and .sbd files from the IMAP account folders into the placeholder folder.
4. Restart Thunderbird.

This assumes you're using the regular mbox file storage and not maildir. You can't mix and match these two storage systems.

From memory I think they were all regular mbox files, so it sounds promising - I'm away for a couple of days but I'll try it when I get back and post feedback . I take it that if its successful I can then delete the old accounts without affecting anything I have moved into Local Folders

To stop current mail accounts from connecting with server. Have you done the following?

• Right click on defunct mail account in Folder Pane and select 'Settings'
• Select 'Server Settings'

For POP account:

• uncheck: 'Check for new messages at start up'
• uncheck: 'Check for new messages every xx minutes'
• uncheck 'Automatically download new messages'

For IMAP mail account:

• uncheck: 'Check for new messages at start up'
• uncheck: 'Check for new messages every xx minutes'
• uncheck : 'Allow immedaite server notification when new messages arrive'

• make sure all mail accounts you are not using have these settings

• click on 'OK'

To Zenos On my return home I found that Thunderbird Support was in Read Only mode "Some maintenance on the site is happening to cause the site to go into read-only mode for a bit". actually It was all day yesterday !) so this reply is a tad more tardy than I would have liked.

I created a placeholder folder in Local Folders as you suggested. I shutdown Thunderbird and copied the contents of relevant mbox's from the IMAP account folders into the placeholder folder.

On restarting Thunderbird all the structure of the IMAP account was recreated as .sbd's of the placeholder however there were no e-mails in these folders. On closing Thunderbird and examining the placeholder in file manger the copies of the relevant mbox contents could be seen (the extensionless files: Inbox, Sent etc) however if an attempt were made to drag and drop there into their .sbd folders both vanished from Thunderbird Menu and can only be seen in file manager.

I repeated the process with a "placeholder2" creating the folder in file manager - Thunderbird sees this but will nor read copied files present in it. The folder now appears as an icon of what appears to be a bundle of letters with a strap and buckle around it.

I also tried creating a new profile and importing the old IMAP account - still no readable mail in new profile though all the contents have been imported and visible in File Manager. . . including the associated site Security file - services.addons.mozilla.org:HSTS So I'm giving up . . . I'll delete all the recent changes and live with what I've got.

The suggestions from Toad-Hall to uncheck: 'Check for new messages at start up'/'Check for new messages every xx minutes' etc has improved things considerably - Thank you both very much for your time

I have similar advice to Zenos, but I suggest you export using the export import tools add-on and also import using the sane tool. They are point and click so you do not have to understand the intricacies of how the files are structured. less chance of error.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/

Note inbox is the data file. Inbox.msf is an index and not required. inbox.sdb tells Thunderbird that the folder has sub folders and it contains the mbox files for the sub folders.

When moving manually it is not a good idea to include the MSF files as their absence forces a re reading of the actual data files (mbox) and a refresh of the user interface. Normally the user interface is populated by the MSF file. In the case of IMAP accounts where Thunderbird is instructed to not keep copies locally only the MSF file is maintained and there is no local mbox file. This is demonstrated by selecting a message in the user interface and no message body is displayed.

Matt I already have this addon the 3.3.0 version and have used it (see previous post) - "I also tried creating a new profile and importing the old IMAP account - still no readable mail in new profile though all the contents have been imported and visible in File Manager." The old IMAP files all have two files — one with no extension and one with an msf file extension. I can open the e-mails in full from the old folders not just the headers. No matter how they are moved or imported they remain invisible to Thunderbird in their new folders although both the mail file itself and one with an msf file extension are present. I think its a security issue - thanks anyway

I think I have found my own solution - I just copy the old redundant IMAP files both the ones with no extension and one with an msf file extension into new folders outside of Thunderbird forming a series of directories. There's a free program from Bitrecover called bitrecover-eudora-viewer.exe (I have since found they have a specific Thunderbird version but this one works fine)

I can view these copies outside of Thunderbird including all attachments and perform searches, so this looks like the solution for me. I Just need to pluck up courage and delete all the old redundant accounts in Thunderbird which will then be a lot less cluttered. Thanks again Guys