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Emails in inbox have dissapered after a crash

  • 7 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by tigergary

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Hello,

I have 4 accounts on thunderbird, 1 Imap, and 3 pop.

After a crash all the emails that I have in the inbox folder of my 3 pop accounts have disapered. The imap account is fine. Other folders of the 3 pop accounts are also fine.

After seeking a solution I have tried to repair without success, and have found the 3 inbox files in my profile for this 3 accounts. one is 2000KB, another 3000KB and the other 8000KB.

If I change the name of inbox to another name, the folder will show in Thunderbird by with nothing... If a open any of the 3 files in word I only see little squares...

I have lost a few important and pending emails, is there a way to have them back?

Hello, I have 4 accounts on thunderbird, 1 Imap, and 3 pop. After a crash all the emails that I have in the inbox folder of my 3 pop accounts have disapered. The imap account is fine. Other folders of the 3 pop accounts are also fine. After seeking a solution I have tried to repair without success, and have found the 3 inbox files in my profile for this 3 accounts. one is 2000KB, another 3000KB and the other 8000KB. If I change the name of inbox to another name, the folder will show in Thunderbird by with nothing... If a open any of the 3 files in word I only see little squares... I have lost a few important and pending emails, is there a way to have them back?

All Replies (7)

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I ... have found the 3 inbox files in my profile for this 3 accounts.

What files exactly? Mail files are the ones without a file extension. They are plain text, and can be opened with a decent text editor.

I have lost a few important and pending emails, is there a way to have them back?

Restore them from a recent backup you created prior to the problem.

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Hello Christ1,

Thank you for your reply and help.

The files I have are "inbox" file, precisely without extension. When I open them (any of the 3) with a text editor (word for exemple), I only see lots os squares... here is a link to one of them so you can see what I mean

INBOX FILE

I have no backup. I am using thunderbird surely over 10 years and never had any problems... used to use Mozbackup to move data from one computer to another but did not use it a long, long time ago!

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The 2 MB Inbox file you posted is a binary file, not plain text.

Your Inbox file: > file Inbox Inbox: data

It should look similar to that: > file INBOX INBOX: UTF-8 Unicode text, with very long lines, with CRLF, LF line terminators

Therefore it's unusable for Thunderbird. I have no idea how you managed to do that though. So without a proper backup I don't think you can recover your data.

When I open them (any of the 3) with a text editor (word for exemple),

Even though it might be able to open plain text files, Word is by no means a text editor.

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Hello,

Thank you again for your help.

The inbox file I posted is the one I have removed from my profile after the crash. The file ended up like this after a crash, that why I wasn't able to resotre my emails with a repair...

Now, when I open the new inbox file that is in my profile, I can see lot of text, emails addres, etc...

So, probably the 3 inbox files were corrupted with the crash and I lost everything :-(

I think I will try to change this account from pop to Imap, that way the file stays in the server and in thunderbird, so even if it crashes, the files of my inbox will be secure in the server, right?

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Sometimes my inbox is blank with no messages showing. If I click on the small button at the right of the title row (subject, correspondents, date, etc.) I see a long menu. Then if I click on "reset columns to default", the messages reappear.

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tigergary,

what has your question got to do with the OPs problem? Please start a new topic for your problem. https://support.mozilla.org/questions/new

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I did not post a question, but a response that I thought might help with the original issue.