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File contents lost when setting up new email client

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  • Last reply by Matt

Mfine9331
Mfine9331
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Some weeks ago I decided to change, on my Mac Pro, the default email client in Thunderbird from Yahoo to Gmail. (I have not used Yahoo for email for over a year). Everything seemed to work well until I went to my named folders containing saved email correspondence located on the left side of the screen. As I opened each folder it's entire contents vanished. Not only did the contents of my folders vanish from Thunderbird but they also vanished from my Gmail account. The folders contained material I wanted to save for subseqfrom years ago that I wanted to save.

I have searched in vain to find where the contents of the folders went including ICloud, Safari, Google and Yahoo. I have never had this problem with any site other than with Thunderbird. Can someone out there help me locate the missing emails or are they lost forever?

Some weeks ago I decided to change, on my Mac Pro, the default email client in Thunderbird from Yahoo to Gmail. (I have not used Yahoo for email for over a year). Everything seemed to work well until I went to my named folders containing saved email correspondence located on the left side of the screen. As I opened each folder it's entire contents vanished. Not only did the contents of my folders vanish from Thunderbird but they also vanished from my Gmail account. The folders contained material I wanted to save for subseqfrom years ago that I wanted to save. I have searched in vain to find where the contents of the folders went including ICloud, Safari, Google and Yahoo. I have never had this problem with any site other than with Thunderbird. Can someone out there help me locate the missing emails or are they lost forever?

All Replies (1)

Matt
Matt
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I think I need to start with some conventions. Thunderbird is a program, it runs on your computer, it is not a "site"

As a mail client Thunderbird collects mail from mail servers and in the case of IMAP mail accounts maintains a synchronised set of folders with the mail server.

You say "I decided to change, on my Mac Pro, the default email client in Thunderbird from Yahoo to Gmail"

I assume that you mean you chose to change the mail provider in Thunderbird from Yahoo to Gmail. How you did that I have absolutely no idea, but I am guessing from your discussion of catastrophic results that you edited server names in account settings rather than add another mail account to Thunderbird ie having gmail and yahoo at the same time.

So if you took a synchronised folder of mail from yahoo and tried to update the server involved to gmail. The net result would be the gmail server would never have heard of any of the yahoo mail so it would be deleted and then the same would have happened most likely to the contents of the gmail account as well.

So before you do anything else, please explain exactly how you did what you did. There is a slim chance some mail may be recovered, but that is dependent on exactly what you did.