Inbox emails lost after repair, but still there via Search, how to recover?
For some reason, all the emails in my Inbox were blank in both the preview pane and when I opened it.
I followed the advice, foolishly, on another support thread that said to Repair the Inbox folder.
I did, but unfortunately it wiped out all the emails in my Inbox.
When I log into my webmail, the emails are not there likely because it's POP email.
However, when I do a search on Thunderbird, I can find almost all the emails. There are no emails from after February 19th showing, and there are some emails in February that are blank as well. But before February all the emails can be found via searching.
My question is, if I can find the emails through searching, they must still be somewhere.
How can I restore them to my Inbox?
Thank you!
All Replies (1)
re :I followed the advice, foolishly, on another support thread that said to Repair the Inbox folder.
No you were not foolish. What you did was to repair the index file so that it actually showed what was really in the Inbox. It had no effect on what was in the Inbox - your emails.
The reason you can still see messages in the search is because that also holds old data - not necessarilly what is actually there. It does not hold emails.
I suggest you do the following to get your search refreshed and up to date.
make sure hidden folders and files are visible:
In Thunderbird
- Help > Troubleshooting Information
- click on 'Show folder' button - a new window opens showing your Profile folder.
- Close Thunderbird now - this is important.
- scroll down - Look for and delete this file: global-messages-db.sqlite
- restart Thunderbird
a new global-messages-db.sqlite file will be created and repopulated with correct up to date data.
It is hard for me to know exactly what occured with the Inbox emails, but I could offer a good guess.
The Inbox folder as shown in the Folder Pane is actuall a single mbox file. When emails are downloaded, they are writent o that file and stored one after the other in the order downloaded - in ONE file, not a folder containing different email .eml files. The Inbox gets a lot of activity eg; deleteing emails, moving emails etc.
When you delete an email, from your point of view it moves from inbox to Trash/Deleted folder. In reality, it is still in the Inbox, but it is hidden from view and 'marked as deleted'. This means it is easy to recover a mail deleted in error. If you do not compact the Inbox on a regualr basis to remove those 'marked as deleted' emails, over time you risk that file becoming corrupted. When Thunderbird compacts that file - either manually or automatically, it does not know where a 'marked as deleted' mail ends. So it may delete good emails. This may have occurred in your case.
How to prevent this from reoccuring: The Inbox folder should ideally be used as an Inbox for incoming mail and be kept low in email numbers. It should not be used as a general store.
Create folders to move and organise emails.
Compact the Inbox on a regular basis, especially after deleting several emails. This helps to maintain a healthy Inbox. Right click on folder and select 'Compact'
What is compacting and why is it so important: Basically - compacting removes hidden marked as deleted emails, cleaning up your folder and reducing file size. It is a mintainance procedure. please read this information.
If you have emails in Junk folder. You can right click on Junk folder and select to 'Empty folder'. Right click on Junk folder again and select 'Compact' to remove hidden marked as deleted mail.
You can also select to compact all folders: File > Compact folders
How to set up Archive Options :
You should 'Archive' anything older than a couple of months to help keep file size small. This will also help to maintain a better performance as large files use more memory. An Archives folder will be created, so you can still access those emails.
Make a backup of your Profile folder:
You can also perform more regular backups of folders or individual emails. ImportExporttools addon is really useful to do this.
Unfortunately, if you do not have the Account Settings option to 'Leave messages on server' selected then there will be no copies on server. Pop mail accounts do assume that you remove them off the server as it would use up your quota. It is also assumed that you would therefore keep your own backups.
This information will not resolve getting your emails back, but I hope it explains what went wrong, why it went wrong and what you can do to prevent further occurances or at least have a backup. If you had a backup , then you could have used it.