How often do you compact folders? You should do that frequently to keep things working.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keep_it_working_%28Thunderbird%29

I have compacting set to automatic (whenever it will save 50 MB in total). Even after compacting a folder (or all of them), moving a message still corrupts it.

Restart Thunderbird with add-ons disabled (Thunderbird Safe Mode). On the Help menu, click on "Restart with Add-ons Disabled". If Thunderbird works like normal, there is an Add-on or Theme interfering with normal operations. You will need to re-enable add-ons one at a time until you locate the offender.

Restarted Thunderbird in Safe mode, all add-ons disabled (verified); problem still exists.

I'm having a similar problem. I have been testing MOVING threads between folders. Sometimes, when I click in the destination folder just after the move, it appears as if the thread has been duplicated many times. If I click in another folder (say, the Trash folder), and then click back in the Inbox, the display has cleared.

Other times, the very first message will have a "RE:" prefix in the subject line, even though it's the first message in the thread, and should not have a "RE:". Sometimes this appears only momentarily, whereas other times it stays there indefinitely, until I click in another folder and then return to that Inbox.

Environment: Both Windows 8.1-64 and Windows XP SP3, TB 31.0, Dovecot IMAP server.

If my problems are unrelated, I'll start a new topic - thanks.

Is there any progress on this? I found a new wrinkle today - if I move an IMAP message from the inbox to a different folder, then move it back without repairing the folder, the message becomes corrupt and nothing can save it.

This is actually getting to the point where I'm looking for a replacement for Thunderbird. I simply cannot repair a folder every time I want to check an e-mail I've filed.

Thanks for any help,

Richard.

Have you excluded the Thunderbird profile folder from on access scanning (or whatever your anti virus calls it) Most weird corruption issues are caused by file locking and other contention issues between Thunderbird and a third party application.

Anti virus programs are dead center as Third Party applications that access and lock files, just when Thunderbird is trying to update them.

Another issue can be that the folders are simply getting to big. Moving mail from a folder does not reduce the size of the file on disk (that would be very slow) so unless you compact your folders (Right click the folder to see the option) they can grow to an unmanageable size. This is especially the case with IMAP folders which essentially have no limit on their ability to grow.

SO compact the folders. Then try Windows safe mode with Networking. That disables the part of anti virus programs that scans files on access. See if that helps before trying to set up exclusions etc.

I'm running Linux (see original post, though the kernel version has been updated) - no anti-virus software. Compacting folders has no effect - either when done automatically (see my response on 11 June).

File sizes - could be the problem; will move messages to LocalFolders and see if that helps.

I have been moving messages to LocalFolders (several thousand to date), and the problem is getting worse. I just repaired a folder and moved a message from that folder to another. It showed up, but there was no message body (one of the symptoms of this problem). When I repaired the new folder, the message vanished.

The folders have been compacted several times during this process.

Any help would be appreciated...

It sounds as if you have one or more folders corrupted. See this page:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recover_messages_from_a_corrupt_folder

Well, I have moved several thousand messages to matching folders in the "Local Folders" area. I still cannot move IMAP messages without them becoming corrupted. I then copied all of the folders from the account folder to a new folder in "Local Folders", deleted the folders from the account folder, and copied them back. No help.

My folder structure appears to be a little weird:

imap.charter-1.net/ imap.charter-2.net/ imap.charter.net/ imap.googlemail-1.com/ imap.googlemail-2.com/ imap.googlemail-3.com/ imap.googlemail-4.com/ imap.googlemail-5.com/ imap.googlemail-6.com/ imap.googlemail.com/ secure.emailsrvr.com/

I do have three google addresses (well, addresses that are served by google) - but six folders? I also only have one charter e-mail address. interestingly enough, moving a message from my Inbox to another folder, repairing that folder so I can read the message, and then sending the message back to the Inbox corrupts the message yet again; I'm pretty sure that my Inbox isn't corrupted (as above).

This is driving me absolutely nuts. I have spent probably 40-50 hours moving messages around, and I'm no better off than I was before. Any and all help would be appreciated.

Your going nuts, and I am confused... lord help us.

Do I assume your talking about folders in the file system here? as the folder names look correct for the files system.

Each account your configure (or have configured in the past gets it's own folder with a number attached to differentiate them Three failed setup attempts could account for Googlemail one through three. for instance.

But I think I need to ask you just what it is your trying to achieve at the end of the day. Perhaps there is a better way. (their usually is at least two ways to do something)

So... i can NOT move a message (received via IMAP) to a folder without corrupting the folder (sometimes I can see the message header, sometimes not, but the message body comes up blank). So before moving a message to a folder I have to "repair" the folder, then move the message, then "repair" the folder again. Having to do that for any and every e-mail message I want to save is becoming... tedious.

One suggestion was to compact the folders; that happens automatically. Just to be sure, I've compacted a folder and then moved a message in - same problem.

Another was to make the folders smaller, so I moved a lot of messages (literally thousands, bordering on ten thousand or more) to the "Local Folders" section - no help there either.

The article in the answer from finitarry suggested using a tool to break the folder into 500 message chunks (so I could look for the corruption). Perhaps I misread the article, but it seemed to be looking for the raw files - hence my listing of the file structure for my profile. I have no idea which one to use for that. Editing text files - not a problem, and I do have an editor that will handle large files (vim).

If there is a way to export everything (and keep the folder structure) I can move all of the messages to Local Folders, export, and then import (assuming there is a chance that would fix things).

It's getting worse. Thunderbird just crashed and, when it came back up, couldn't open the address book. Logged out and back in - no add-ons. None. Zero.

Restarted the computer - no add-ons. Everything else is there, so I haven't lost my profile (at least that's how I read it).

How can I export all my e-mails so I don't lose them?