Sub folder vanished with emails. Emails still can be found with search option but won't display text
A bunch of my subfolders for sorting my email vanished, which was brought to my attention when TB tried to sort my mail and said that the subfolder did not exist. I re-created the subfolders with the same name as before and when I went into the new subfolder I was surprised to see that all the past email were in it. However, when I opened the e-mails the body of the emails were empty. (I even tried highlighting for white text as suggested on line, but nothing)
I used the "search emails "options to try and find them, using the title of the emails as the search parameter ie "Receipt for your PalPay payments" and the search results provided me with the results of all the missing emails with the full text of each e-mail. However, when I went into individual emails (or the open emails as list option) the text was still not there. It must be there somewhere since the search option is finding it.
I tried deleting the Profile (global-messages-db.sqlite) hoping that it would bring the text back but it didn't work. Most of the emails that are blank are of the financial nature and I would really like them back.
HELP!!!!!
Thank You, John Jaeger
Chosen solution
Thanks for trying. Can't find the missing folders anywhere. Went back into time machine and pulled the old ones so only lost a week or so of mail. in those folders.
Thanks again
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after deleting the global-messages-db.sqlite can you still search for them? or are you using windows search?
Yes, After deleting the global-messages-db.sqlite I can still search for them within the TB program and the full text appears in the search results, but opening up individual e-mails show no text.
in he middle of the search results screen at the top is a show list option. ( hidden in plain sight) click it. in the list. right click the headings and select location. That will not find you mail as such. but it will give the folder the search is finding it in. If that name is what you expect, you have perhaps dragged the folder or folders to another location so they are a sub folder of another unrelated folder.
View Menu (Alt+V) > folders > all to ensure only real physical folders are visible, now you will need to expand each and every folder in the tree to locate your folders.
When I right click it gives me a large menu but one of the items is not "location" (see screen shot.) What I noticed in my Thunderbird Profiles->Mail was that where there is normally 2 files for the folders (example: Family and Family.msf) The missing mailboxes only have one folder the .msf and not the other one. If I understand Thunderbird correctly the one titles "Family" would contain the actual emails and the "Family.msf" would contain the index of the emails. I wonder in the search if it is picking up on the index of the emails and not the actual e-mails.
When I do a search now, it is no longer showing the full text of the emails and just the headings in the search results. I guess rebuilding the global-messages-db.sqlite claned it up. (although it is still showing email titles for which there is no email)
your not right clicking on the list headings. your right clicking in the list. or so the image tells me.
As your playing in the file system, go looking in there for the original files of mail. Your correct that the MSF is an index and the other of the file pair contains the actual mail
The fact you deleted the global index and the mails can still be found after it rebuilt tells me the main original folders are still intact. The global index contains almost all of the text of an email, as such it can only regenerate containing that information if it can find the folders.
Chosen Solution
Thanks for trying. Can't find the missing folders anywhere. Went back into time machine and pulled the old ones so only lost a week or so of mail. in those folders.
Thanks again