[RESOLVED] All Messages Disappeared Suddenly Out of Inbox in Thunderbird
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Thread: [RESOLVED] All Messages Disappeared Suddenly Out of Inbox in Thunderbird

  1. #1
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    Resolved [RESOLVED] All Messages Disappeared Suddenly Out of Inbox in Thunderbird

    I have no idea how it happened. But when I opened my Thunderbird email program and with my Inbox showing, Thunderbird downloaded all my new email messages but suddenly all the email messages that was there before the download disappeared! I had not done anything yet, I was just waiting for any new emails to download. Now the only thing showing in my Inbox are the emails that Thunderbird just downloaded. I checked in all the other folders I have and the old messages are not in any of those. The first folder I checked was the "Trash" folder to see if somehow they had all inadvertently deleted and put into the trash. You would think if messages disappeared out of the Inbox that they would have gone into the Trash folder. Now I am afraid to open Thunderbird again for fear the new messages are going to disappear too!

    Anyone with any ideas?
    Sheila

  2. #2
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    I'm going to bed now as it is very late where I live. I will check back here in the morning to see if anyone has any ideas.
    Goodnight,
    Sheila

  3. #3
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    OK, here is what I have been thinking about. I am thinking that my email messages that was in Thunderbird's Inbox has to be somewhere on my computer. In another thread Train posted me a link to a program called "Search Anything" & I installed that to use and try to find my contact book in Vista. I was thinking about trying to use this program to look for those lost email messages. But I need to know what extension that Thunderbird's email messages has. I can't look for the messages if I don't know Thunderbird's email extension. Would the extension be .eml?
    Thanks,
    Sheila

  4. #4
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    Thunderbrid Profile info:

    http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs

    http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_fo...Thunderbird%29

    http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird



    E-Mail files:
    Thunderbird stores messages in the Profile Folder, in the Mail and (if you use IMAP) ImapMail folders. Each mail folder (Inbox, Sent, etc.) is stored as two files — one with no extension (e.g. INBOX), which is the mail file itself (in "mbox" format), and one with an .msf extension (e.g. INBOX.msf), which is the index (Mail Summary File) to the mail file.
    http://askville.amazon.com/location-...questId=460332

  5. #5
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    Angry This is really crazy!

    jdc2000: I read a lot of articles from the first link that you posted and from what I could gather messages were stored in Thunderbird's Profile folder. Took me a while to finally find it but when I opened it no messages were stored there. I followed the instructions in one of the articles to find the profile folder. So next, I went to MozBackUp and first backed up Thunderbird as it was today. Then I went back to MozBackUp and restored just the email messaged from a few days earlier. When I opened Thunderbird, it showed almost all the emails that I had been looking for that I had lost--as well as the emails I had gotten today. The Thunderbird Window had only been open for about 60 seconds when all of a sudden all those emails I had just restored, disappeared instantly and left me with the emails I had received today!! This is really crazy For the life of me I can not figure out why just those particular emails disappeared and not the ones from today?? I have come to the believe that if I were to try and restore those messages again they would instantly disappear again.

    I did not understand what ImapMail folders are or if I even have them. I created folders in my Inbox in sub-folders according to who sent me an email--Friends, Family, etc. Are these ImapMail Folders? When I looked into Thunderbird's profile, I looked into every folder listed and did not see anything that referred to ImapMail Folders, Inbox.msf or anything that looked like it could be a email message.

    If I don't figure out this problem, I am going to go back to using Windows Live 2011 and just use Thunderbird as a backup for contacts--I will add contacts to Thunderbird as I get new contacts and then backup Thunderbird so that I will always have all my email addresses. Crazy round about way to have to back up email addresses!
    Last edited by gypsy63; November 9th, 2010 at 04:41 PM. Reason: Left out some information
    Sheila

  6. #6
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    Is it possible that you have ThunderChicken set to only show unread e-mails, or possibly only e-mails new that XX days?

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...AAAKoEBU_Qo1Ay

  7. #7
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    jdc2000: I checked out your search results and using the results on "How to display only unread messages" I used that information to do just the opposite. I followed all the directions and made sure that the "View" was set to "Show all messages". Those old messages just did not show up. I finally did a search with the term, "Disappearing messages in Thunderbird" and found the site below.

    http://kb.mozillazine.org/Disappearing_mail

    I tried everything it suggested, including "rebuilding" the Inbox folder in case it was corrupt--but nothing helped to recover those messages.

    I have read hours and hours of articles until my eyes are pure bleary from reading--I've got to take a break from this problem. For a while I will just use Windows Live Mail and one day I will go back trying to solve this problem. Maybe something will come along that shows me what to do. I already have joined that forum that you sent me to, Askville, and posted the problem there too. Maybe someone there will email me the solution to the problem. If I ever find the solution, I will post back here. So I am going to mark this thread as solved because I have gone as far as I can right now and I am just plain tired of trying to find the answer. There has to be more to life than staying on a computer every day, all day long, trying to fix something. It's not like I don't have an email program at all to fall back on.
    Thanks for all your help,
    Sheila

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    Question For bijou

    Bijou: I got an email message stating you had replied to this old thread, but every time I clicked on the link in my email program, it took me here but no thread from you was found.

    In case you are reading this, I no longer use Thunderbird. I got a new computer since this thread was created with Windows 7 & use the email program that comes with it--and I really like it. But thanks for trying to answer my question.
    Sheila

  9. #9
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    Bijou is no longer a member of VDR Sheila. This member was a spammer and I banned him/her.

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    Thanks!

    photolady: Thanks for answering as I was really puzzled--and thanks also for protecting me!
    Sheila

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    You're welcome Sheila.

  12. #12
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    I had the same thing happen to me - all of 2013 (plus half of 2014) have vanished into thin air - where do I find MozBackUp, cuz I can't seem to resolve it using the info in the standard links. (A heads up, I am not fluent in computer, so things take me a little longer to do, so any detailed instruction/help is deeply appreciated)

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    I could not find the link on Firefox's web site but I found it on other sites. According to my "WOT" security program this is a safe web site:

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/mozbackup/

    After you install it, just click next on each window that opens up & choose the programs you want backed up. But first make a folder, preferably on different hard drive, labeled something like, "Firefox or Thunderbird backup". Then when you are telling MozBackup to back up your programs, when you get to the part that says "Default" (where you want to back it up), then click on browse and go to the folder where you want your backups to go. After that from then on when you get to the Default when backing up, you don't need to browse any more because you have already made that folder your default. I advise you to put the folder on another hard drive if you have one because if something happens to your computer (C Drive) then all you have to do is re-install Firefox or Thunderbird, & then you restore all your settings from your backups even if you had to re-install your C drive. Hope all this helps.
    Sheila

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    THANK YOU - I will give this a shot. Don't have an alternate hard drive (other than my back-up system) but will try using that - here's fingers crossed.

    pat

  15. #15
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    Pat: If you don't have another hard drive then I can suggest a cheap alternative. If you have a thumb drive/flash drive, then you can back up your Firefox settings to it each time. It would not even have to be a large data holding thumb drive because after you create a new backup, you can then just delete the previous backup--thus, always having the newest backup if you ever needed it to restore your Firefox settings. Thumb drives are cheap now so it would be a good alternative if you don't have another hard drive.

    Hope this helps.
    Sheila

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