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All messages in my Thunderbird account disappeared. How do I retrieve?

  • 8 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 10 views
  • Last reply by christ1

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I've been using Thunderbird on my desktop for a year now and had hundreds of messages, incoming and outgoing. When I logged on yesterday morning all emails were gone. Inbox, sent, drafts, etc., were completely empty. What happened and can they be retrieved?

I've been using Thunderbird on my desktop for a year now and had hundreds of messages, incoming and outgoing. When I logged on yesterday morning all emails were gone. Inbox, sent, drafts, etc., were completely empty. What happened and can they be retrieved?

All Replies (8)

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Chosen Solution

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I went through the list of items you identified, one by one. When I got to the "repair folders" step that was the solution. As soon as I clicked on repair folders button all my emails came back.

Thank you for coming to the rescue!

Since you seem to be knowledgeable, maybe you can tell me why I can't run Thunderbird on my laptop. It works fine on my desktop, but sometimes I'm away from my office and want to use email. The laptop runs Windows xp. Also, is there a Thunderbird mobile app? I've looked everywhere for that - Play store, Mozilla, the web. Can't find a thing!

Thank you, Denice

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I can't run Thunderbird on my laptop.

You'd certainly need to be more specific about your problem on the laptop.

is there a Thunderbird mobile app?

There isn't one, and probably won't be for the foreseeable future.

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Here is some additional info. Maybe you can help me to figure this out.

I download and run thunderbird on my laptop. The first error message I get is about certificates, but it doesn't tell me what to do about it. I check the box that says to allow exception.

Then a new screen opens that looks like the email dashboard. It asks me to login, which I do. The login fails, but it doesn't tell me how to reset the password or what else to do. I use that same password on my desktop I believe, but Thunderbird won't show me my password or tell me how to reset it, so how do I check that? On my desktop it never asks me for a password - it just opens automatically.

I have screen captures of these three steps as they appear on my laptop. Can you tell me what to try next?

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From your screenshots (which are difficult to read, because they are very small) it looks like the cert you receive has been issued for a different site than you're trying to access. You should talk to your email provider. I can only guess that you haven't set up your account for SSL/TLS on your desktop.

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Thanks for checking. Sorry the images were hard to read, I resized them to 600x400 so they'd be easy to open.

My email provider is Thunderbird, right? Do you know of a call-in support number?

Thank you again.

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A new problem has occurred. Ever since I did the "Repair Folders" action to retrieve my old emails that had disappeared, I haven't been able to get any new emails. The last email in my Inbox is from April 22. It is now May 2, and still no new mail!

I tried sending an email from one Thunderbird profile to another and I get an error message saying that the item could not be saved to my Sent folder. I'm thinking these issues are related.

I've gone through my Account Settings>Tools>Server settings and everything seems to be set correctly there. However, I couldn't find anything about a "global inbox" in order to check that.

Please provide suggestions

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Do you know of a call-in support number?

There is no phone support for Thunderbird. This forum is the official Thunderbird support venue.

A new problem has occurred.

Please start a new thread for that.