I have 2 IMAP email accounts in T-Bird and changed server settings for 1 of these accounts and now would like to get the folder/emails back.
I keep 2 different IMAP email accounts in my Thunderbird profile. I had to switch mail servers for 1 of these accounts, so did a backup of my profile with Mozbackup. I then found that I could not re-create the email account with the new server settings (as some settings were the same e.g. incoming server = mail.XXX.com in both old and new settings), so I had to change the settings of the existing account in T-Bird, delete the password, re-enter the new password and it worked in terms of now downloading mail from my new server, but all the old emails/folder structure has disappeared. Is there a way to re-load the emails/folder structure I previously had, whilst keeping the new mail settings I have loaded?
Please let me know what points I should clarify as I realise the description is not very clear. Thanks in advance for your help.
All Replies (5)
http://kb.mozillazine.org/IMAP_backup
when you created the backup, did you synchronize all folders for offline use to force a local copy to be created, then in offline mode perform a backup to copy the created mbox files?
Re Mozbackups .pcv file - To see what was backed up.
- Rename the backup file from "*.pcv" to "*.zip".
- Extract (unzip) the ".zip" file into a convenient location. If you look inside the unzipped folder you will see your mail folders, address books and the other files that make up your profile folder.
check both IMAPMail and Mail folder, select the mail account and you can open any file (not .msf file) with 'Notepad' to see what emails are saved.
- Can you see the folder names as files?
- Do they contain the emails?
- Do you have them or any emails saved in Local Folders?
re I had to switch mail servers for 1 of these accounts,
IMAP - Your mail account folders and emails are kept on the server.
- Please say why you needed to switch mail servers?
- If you logon to your webmail account using a browser, are all your emails and folders visible?
- What were the old server settings?
- what new server settings were you advised to use?
Modified by Toad-Hall
Hi there. Thank you very much for your help on this matter, it is much appreciated. To answer your questions, from the top:
Firstly I did not sych folders for offline use, I merely used the Mozbackup facility to make a backup of the profile in the hope that I could reinstall the emails and folder structure when new IMAP email was set up.
- Can you see the folder names as files? - Yes all there
- Do they contain the emails? - Yes
- Do you have them or any emails saved in Local Folders? - Yes, but only Junk, Sent, Trash and Unsent
- Please say why you needed to switch mail servers? - We changed service providers to a new hosting company, so mail server settings had to change
- If you logon to your webmail account using a browser, are all your emails and folders visible? - I have logged onto the webmail of the old SP and all the mails/folders are still there.
- What were the old server settings? - settings were similair, but the outgoing server has changed to mail.jawscleans.co.uk (cant remember the old SMTP server name - but it wasnt that). The SMTP has also changed ports from (I think) 587 to 25, and the password has changed.
- what new server settings were you advised to use? - changes as per above.
Thanks again in advance for looking into this issue for us. I hope these answers help you understand where we are now, and will help in deciding on the best route forward. Please feel free to let me know if there are any further queris that need answering.
Regards, Justin
Assuming moxbackup managed to backup the files with emails, this method imports the mbox file into Local Folders from where you can put onto the new server.
As you have renamed the backup file from "*.pcv" to "*.zip". and extracted the files and folders, click on the 'ImapMail' folder.
It should contain eg: 'Inbox' and 'Inbox.msf' files. the 'Inbox' file contains the emails, this file does not have an extension and it is an mbox file and this is the file you need to import. The 'Inbox.msf' file is just an indexing file, so you do not need the .msf files as Thunderbird will recreate them. You will need to follow instructions to import all files similar to 'Inbox' file that contain emails.
Download Importexporttool:
So that you do not overwrite anything make sure you are in 'offline' mode first.
- right click on Local folders
- select 'Importexporttool > 'import mbox file'
- locate the unzipped backup 'Inbox' file in 'IMapMail' folder and click on Open.
- The file should be imported into Local Folders.
- right click on the imported file and choose 'Repair Folder' - this will reindex the file.
Repeat for other files. If you have a folder with the same name which you do not want to overwrite, rename the file in the moxbackup unzipped extracted files before importing.
Once you have all the emails in Local Folders, these are on your computer in the Profile folder. You could choose to leave them in Local Folder or copy them into the Imap account.
Once you have emails in Local folders you can reconnect to the network/internet - go into online mode, synchronize with the IMAP account and copy the restored mails to the IMAP folders. Suggest you use copy to get those emails back onto the server as it keep a copy in Local folders, do a few and resynchronise the folder and check they have moved ok. To be certain, you could logon to the new webmail account, to see if you can see them there as well.
Modified by Toad-Hall
when you synchronize the IMAP mail account check settings first. At the top of the page, Keep messages for this account on this computer should be checked .see info at above link.
Thanks you so much - this has worked as you described and we now have the emails/folders as local folders.
Thanks so much for taking the time to help us out.