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Restore Mailbox Files

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by christ1

pixeldroid
pixeldroid
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Unfortunately, I set one of my IMAP accounts to delete mail older than 120 days, which is a bit disastrous - I thought I was setting the policy for emptying the trash :<

I use TBird portable, and I have a backup from which I can get the most important email. For example I have these files for a mailbox that I want to restore: _pwd_SN_reg _pwd_SN_reg.msf

I can copy these files from the backup to the current version of TBird and it will load the email, but when it syncs with the GMail server, the messages are deleted. Any suggestions for attempting to solve this would be greatly appreciated.

Unfortunately, I set one of my IMAP accounts to delete mail older than 120 days, which is a bit disastrous - I thought I was setting the policy for emptying the trash :< I use TBird portable, and I have a backup from which I can get the most important email. For example I have these files for a mailbox that I want to restore: _pwd_SN_reg _pwd_SN_reg.msf I can copy these files from the backup to the current version of TBird and it will load the email, but when it syncs with the GMail server, the messages are deleted. Any suggestions for attempting to solve this would be greatly appreciated.

All Replies (2)

pixeldroid
pixeldroid Question owner
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I figured out a fix: You will need an email address setup as POP - hence it won't delete local files based on IMAP sync.

Close TBird and copy both mailbox files ( _pwd_SN_reg and _pwd_SN_reg.msf in this case) to a local storage folder - for example: \ThunderbirdPortable\Data\profile\Mail\Local Folders

Restart TBird and drag the files into your IMAP folder. Voila!

To restore a mail folder (.sbd) requires copying 3 files, for example: Onboarding.sbd Onboarding Onboarding.msf

Modified by pixeldroid

christ1
christ1
  • Top 25 Contributor
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Instead of creating an additional POP account you could have simply restored your backed up messages to the built-in 'Local Folders' account.