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How can I recover email sub-folders

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  • 1 has this problem
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  • Paskiausią atsakymą parašė MikeGatehouse

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My email provider required me to migrate to a new server and advised setting up a new Account in Thunderbird. I did this and it successfully imported most or all of my stored emails from the old server. However, the import only preserved the first level of sub-folders (I have up to 3 levels). If I right-click on my email account in Thunderbird and choose Subscribe, I can still see the sub-folder structure there. Is there any way I can restore it so that it (a) shows the full collection of sub- and sub-sub folders in the tree; and (b) locates the correct emails in each sub-folder? If not, I face days of work to recreate sub-folders and move emails to their correct location. Thanks for any help!

My email provider required me to migrate to a new server and advised setting up a new Account in Thunderbird. I did this and it successfully imported most or all of my stored emails from the old server. However, the import only preserved the first level of sub-folders (I have up to 3 levels). If I right-click on my email account in Thunderbird and choose Subscribe, I can still see the sub-folder structure there. Is there any way I can restore it so that it (a) shows the full collection of sub- and sub-sub folders in the tree; and (b) locates the correct emails in each sub-folder? If not, I face days of work to recreate sub-folders and move emails to their correct location. Thanks for any help!

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re My email provider required me to migrate to a new server and advised setting up a new Account in Thunderbird.

If you already were using an Imap account, then emails are on server. Email provider should have moved everything over to new server. So you just had to alter the server settings to point to new server.

re : If I right-click on my email account in Thunderbird and choose Subscribe, I can still see the sub-folder structure there.

Do you mean all your folders are displayed in the 'Subscribe' list OR are some missing?

In the 'Subscribe' drop down

  • Click on 'Refresh'
  • Then select all the folders and subfolders
  • Click on 'subscribe'
  • Click on OK
  • Restart Thunderbird.

In the webmail account accessed via a browser, are all the folders and subfolders displayed? Some servers require you to select what is visible for imap eg: gmail. Please confirm, webmail account has it set up to access all folders by imap.

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Chosen Solution

re My email provider required me to migrate to a new server and advised setting up a new Account in Thunderbird.

If you already were using an Imap account, then emails are on server. Email provider should have moved everything over to new server. So you just had to alter the server settings to point to new server.

re : If I right-click on my email account in Thunderbird and choose Subscribe, I can still see the sub-folder structure there.

Do you mean all your folders are displayed in the 'Subscribe' list OR are some missing?

In the 'Subscribe' drop down

  • Click on 'Refresh'
  • Then select all the folders and subfolders
  • Click on 'subscribe'
  • Click on OK
  • Restart Thunderbird.

In the webmail account accessed via a browser, are all the folders and subfolders displayed? Some servers require you to select what is visible for imap eg: gmail. Please confirm, webmail account has it set up to access all folders by imap.

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Thanks. It seems that the folders are/were there, but both Thunderbird and the webmail browser were struggling to display them: the provider was migrating a whole lot of accounts on the same day, and I guess their mail-servers were swamped, with hundreds of thousands of messages and folders to sync. It seems mostly to have settled down now, and my Thunderbird looks pretty much fully populated. Phew! ... and thanks for your good advice.