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.

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

Lolu chungechunge lwabekwa kunqolobane. Uyacelwa ubuze umbuzo omusha uma udinga usizo.

Inbox empty after changing from POP to IMAP

  • 2 uphendule
  • 1 inale nkinga
  • 1 view
  • Igcine ukuphendulwa ngu dlezon

more options

I wanted to change my existing email account from a POP server to IMAP server. The tech support rep from my internet supplier walked me through removing the existing POP account and then setting up an IMAP account with the same username as the original POP account. After setting up the IMAP account, the inbox was empty. All previous messages were gone. The tech support guy spent an hour trying to "find" the old contents of the inbox. It ended with him admitting he was not very familiar with Thunderbird and he was sorry. I have spent hours trying to recover the contents of the inbox with no success. Any help recovering the inbox contents would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I wanted to change my existing email account from a POP server to IMAP server. The tech support rep from my internet supplier walked me through removing the existing POP account and then setting up an IMAP account with the same username as the original POP account. After setting up the IMAP account, the inbox was empty. All previous messages were gone. The tech support guy spent an hour trying to "find" the old contents of the inbox. It ended with him admitting he was not very familiar with Thunderbird and he was sorry. I have spent hours trying to recover the contents of the inbox with no success. Any help recovering the inbox contents would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Isisombululo esikhethiwe

POP accounts usually remove messages from the server after download, so if it there were no messages on the server, the IMAP account would sync with an empty Inbox.

Help/Troubleshooting, Profile Folder, Open Folder, close TB, open the Mail subfolder and then the account subfolder, e.g. Mail/pop.gmail.com. Find the Inbox mbox file - the large file with no extension, next to an Inbox.msf index file. Copy the mbox file only to Mail/Local Folders, then restart TB and find the folder under Local Folders in the Folder Pane.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Convert_a_POP_account_to_a_IMAP_account

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recovering_deleted_mail_accounts

Funda le mpendulo ngokuhambisana nalesi sihloko 👍 0

All Replies (2)

more options

Isisombululo Esikhethiwe

POP accounts usually remove messages from the server after download, so if it there were no messages on the server, the IMAP account would sync with an empty Inbox.

Help/Troubleshooting, Profile Folder, Open Folder, close TB, open the Mail subfolder and then the account subfolder, e.g. Mail/pop.gmail.com. Find the Inbox mbox file - the large file with no extension, next to an Inbox.msf index file. Copy the mbox file only to Mail/Local Folders, then restart TB and find the folder under Local Folders in the Folder Pane.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Convert_a_POP_account_to_a_IMAP_account

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recovering_deleted_mail_accounts

more options

Recovered the lost items. Thank you very much!