My Thunderbird program has lost the ability to list and read saved emails under one of my accounts.
I have four email accounts that I manage through Thunderbird. Recently all folders, sub folders, and emails contained within will not show under one of the accounts. I have tried researching this problem, but not getting anywhere, and I can't find them on my PC. One encouraging thing is I have a program by Mitec, called Mail Viewer, which will view 4 types of email. I haven't use it recently and tried it to find my missing emails. It found all of them. Where is it pulling the files from, for I have search for them with no results, and Mail View doesn't give me their address on my PC. So, why can it find the missing emails and Thunderbird can't? Any suggestions?
All Replies (6)
Make hidden files and folders visible:
In Thunderbird: Help > Troubleshooting Information click on 'show folder' button a new window will open showing Profile folder.
If the missing mail account is Pop mail account : click on 'Mail' folder
If the missing mail account is IMAP mail account : click on 'ImapMail' folder.
what do you see? Please tell me all the mail acounts you see listed.
Check to see which mail account contains the missing folders and emails: click on mail account name eg: the Inbox will be called 'Inbox' with no file extension. You can open this file using Notepad to see emails listed in the order they were downloaded.
If you locate the correct mail account, make a note of the mail account name and where it is stored.
Now check to see if Thunderbird is looking at the correct mail account: In thunderbird: Tools > Account Settings > Server Settings for the mail account look bottom right for 'Local directory' put cursor in the box and use keyboard arrow keys to get to the far right end, which might be out of view. Does it point to the correct mail account? If no, click on 'Browse' and use it to select the correct mail account.
the directory would be similar to this for a pop mail account: C:\Users\User name\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\Mail\mail account name
then click on OK to save any changes.
Close thunderbird and then restart Thunderbird.
Did you locate the mail account in Profile folder? Is the mail account pointing to the correct Local directory? If you needed to make changes and restart Thunderbird, can you see folders and emails?
I've copied your instructions with what I have done up to a point:
Make hidden files and folders visible: >DONE THAT
In Thunderbird: Help > Troubleshooting Information click on 'show folder' button a new window will open showing Profile folder. >DONE That. This is the path of the new window: C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\8m0x58t9.default
If the missing mail account is Pop mail account : click on 'Mail' folder. >>DONE That, this takes you to another folder called which has several folders named: Local Folders, Mail, pop.cox.new, pop3.cox.net, pop3.live.com, and smart mailboxes. That's is so far, now what.
If you can bare with me, the pathway of folders and files never seem to be in the same sequence as instructed.
These are the mail accounts to check: Mail, pop.cox.new, pop3.cox.net, pop3.live.com
One of these mail accounts is the one which you currently cannot see any folders or sub folders. I do not know which one as you have not told me which one it is. double click on the mail account name which has missing folders. Can you see some of the folder names which are not displaying in Thunderbird? Look for eg: the Inbox will be called 'Inbox' with no file extension. You can open this file using Notepad to see emails listed in the order they were downloaded.
Which mail account name had missing folders in Thunderbird? Can you see those folders listed as files in the mail account name and did it contain emails?
Modified by Toad-Hall
Sorry, I can't see any folders that have the names of any of the 4 email accounts I have, and the folders that hold all the emails. I know the ones I'm looking for are somewhere on my PC. Otherwise my mail viewer program wouldn't be able to display them. Unfortunately the mail viewer doesn't give me a path to where they are. Thunderbird must have two separate locations that it stores certain information. One is in the program files, and the other is in, who knows where. This is very confusing.
I think I'll call it quits. I can still see and read the missing emails on the mail viewer. It would have been nice to have them available in one program.
I appreciate your interest in my problem and your time in trying to help me.
Regards, Min7th
re :Sorry, I can't see any folders that have the names of any of the 4 email accounts
Suggest you read the comment you sent to me telling me exactly where you had to and wanted to know what was next. You were looking in the Profile folder and in the Mail folder you saw the mail account names which you reported to me. Those are the folders I'm treferring to, the Profile folders- not folders in your Thunderbird.
Yes, I saw that and pasted the address in my windows browser and it led to the Inbox.isb folder. There were a couple of folders there with some files, but most of what I wanted was missing.