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TB behaviour when downloading and sync-ing of emails

  • 4 replies
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  • Last reply by sfhowes

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Looking on my hard disc, I have found that thunderbird has a profile in: C:\Users\...\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\bpgnysey.default\ImapMail\ If I use "File --> Offline ... --> Download/Synd now ..." it saves email to this directory in files such as <Imap folder name>.msf and an equivalent file name <IMap folder nmae> without an extension. If I then work offline for, say, a few hours or days, then when I go back online, when TB syncs, what takes precedence? If I have deleted emails within TB when offline, do these stay deleted or do they reappear as they are still on the server? Are there any other similar examples that I should watch for that could catch me out? Thanks!

Looking on my hard disc, I have found that thunderbird has a profile in: C:\Users\...\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\bpgnysey.default\ImapMail\ If I use "File --> Offline ... --> Download/Synd now ..." it saves email to this directory in files such as <Imap folder name>.msf and an equivalent file name <IMap folder nmae> without an extension. If I then work offline for, say, a few hours or days, then when I go back online, when TB syncs, what takes precedence? If I have deleted emails within TB when offline, do these stay deleted or do they reappear as they are still on the server? Are there any other similar examples that I should watch for that could catch me out? Thanks!

Chosen solution

It's easy enough to do a simple test. When TB is online and a message is deleted from TB, the message is deleted from the IMAP server. If a message is deleted in TB while it's offline, I would expect it to be deleted from the server when TB goes online, as that would be logical - the point of IMAP sync is to make the local and remote folder structures the same.

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Chosen Solution

It's easy enough to do a simple test. When TB is online and a message is deleted from TB, the message is deleted from the IMAP server. If a message is deleted in TB while it's offline, I would expect it to be deleted from the server when TB goes online, as that would be logical - the point of IMAP sync is to make the local and remote folder structures the same.

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Ok. thanks. will test soon.

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If I wish to keep a backup of my downloaded and sync'd email and then access it later through TB, how would I do that? I am guessing that I first download and sync my email. Then after finding the folder (called something like, "bpgnysey.default"), I would need to rename it to keep it as a backup. Are there any rules that I need to consider when renaming it? And then how would I get TB to point / access that renamed, backup folder?

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The entire profile folder, or the Thunderbird folder, should be backed up regularly. Help/Troubleshooting, click Open folder to open the profile folder, close TB before making a copy. You could also save mail as eml files with Ctrl+S, and then import it by drag and drop from the Explorer folder to a subfolder of Local Folders. Or, simply open an eml file to view it in TB. Mail folders in the profile folder are mbox files - large files with no extension, named after folders - in Mail\<popserver>, ImapMail\<imapserver> and Mail\Local Folders. They can be copied into Mail\Local Folders in the active profile, and will appear under Local Folders when TB restarts.