Some view options may cause messages to not appear, e.g. the Quick Filter and some options under View > Threads:

https://support.mozilla.org/kb/quick-filter-toolbar https://support.mozilla.org/kb/ignore-threads

What you say here would seem to indicate the problem is something else, though:

I repaired the inbox and it is now showing several mails that I deleted in the last few days (by emptying the delete folder having previously deleted them).

As strange as it may sound, deleting a message from a folder doesn't really cause it to be removed from there. The message is merely marked as deleted and remains there until the folder is compacted. What you delete when you empty the Bin/Trash is a copy of the message that Thunderbird placed there when you told it to delete the original message, but the original message remains where it was, just marked as deleted.

Even if it remains there, repairing the folder shouldn't make a deleted message reappear, though. If it was marked as deleted, it should remain hidden, and the fact that some deleted messages reappear would seem to indicate there is a problem with the file where the folder contents are stored on disk.

Do you keep a lot of mail stored in Inbox? What type of mail account is this (POP, IMAP)?

Hi DavidGG

Thank you for such a speedy response and the useful info about deletions. To answer your queries, I keep very little in the inbox and use POP. And just in case it's relevant, I close down TB every night and copy the full folder the next morning before opening again; nothing appeared untoward in any of that.

However since logging this one of the webmails from which I download to TB has stopped receiving mail, though it can still send. It's probably totally unconnected, but... I'm chasing it.

Mrs F

Webmail is working again

And webmail has stopped working again. Assuming coincidence...

Good morning!

Just to say that I still have a major problem with the webmail from which I download to Thunderbird – only some of the mails sent to it are arriving - so it may not be worth you thinking any more about this problem for now: it seems so unlikely to be a co-incidence. But please leave this open.

That said, although I’m not technicalIy minded, I’ve been helped with examining Thunderbird data before, so I’m going to have a cautious look at the current data and that in my recent backups to see if I can see anything suspicious…

Mrs F

Good morning David!

Webmail seems to be working again - the support denied there was any problem, but I'm missing three days mails! - so I’ve focussed on Thunderbird.

As it seems to be an indexing problem, having re-read various forum queries, I closed TB; deleted the global-messages-db.sqlite file; re-opened TB; and waited till the file had been rebuilt. Alas…

Previously the main inbox said there were 64 mails, 47 of which were unread. On opening the folder it showed 25 and 20 respectively; the 20 were all the deleted ‘roads’ mails I referred to earlier. It now said 64 and 47, but on opening 4 and 0. They were all old.

From curiosity I tried repairing the folder and it reverted to 64/47 and 25/20.

Other folders were still rubbish.

Rod, my husband, who had major problem with TB last year and got most of his mails back by Googling ideas, suggests I reinstall TB. I want all of mine back as I’m sure they're still there!

I wonder if it’s worth replacing the current profile folder with one copied – as part of the entire TB folder – a day or two before this problem? Would I then delete global-messages-db.sqlite before opening TB?

Thank you

Hi David

Today I copied the profiles folder from the backup done on 24th and so far it's looking good: folders showing counts and opening correctly, and mail from four sources brought in and apparently complete (apart from the missing three days noted above).

I'll just wait a day or two before closing this...