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Thunderbird folder archive recovery

johnrogers-bowler
johnrogers-bowler
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Our Windows 7 computer uses Thunderbird version 102.13.0. The solitary email account is from Virgin Media who made changes to how emails are used in third party email software. A different password had to be used and input into the 3rd party programme. Virgin had a major email outage that I knew nothing about, this continued for 2weeks or more, including whilst I was trying to get the password to work.

The email in Thunderbird had many folders under Archive, labelled by year and category.

After many hours of trying to resolve the problem and in total frustration I believed the only resolution was to remove the email account in Thunderbird Account Actions and Add it back again, in the hope a fresh set up would make it work. Prior to removing the account I left the box un-ticked so that message data would not be deleted.

The account was removed, set back up again and everything worked with the Virgin Media password except, all the Archive data was not restored into the appropriate folders, in fact there is no historic data at all, only about 60 emails!

Looking at the Virgin Media server, all the emails are still available (10,000 emails). I want to get the Archive folders back again and with their allocated emails.

Please can someone help.

Thank you

Bolwerjr

Our Windows 7 computer uses Thunderbird version 102.13.0. The solitary email account is from Virgin Media who made changes to how emails are used in third party email software. A different password had to be used and input into the 3rd party programme. Virgin had a major email outage that I knew nothing about, this continued for 2weeks or more, including whilst I was trying to get the password to work. The email in Thunderbird had many folders under Archive, labelled by year and category. After many hours of trying to resolve the problem and in total frustration I believed the only resolution was to remove the email account in Thunderbird Account Actions and Add it back again, in the hope a fresh set up would make it work. Prior to removing the account I left the box un-ticked so that message data would not be deleted. The account was removed, set back up again and everything worked with the Virgin Media password except, all the Archive data was not restored into the appropriate folders, in fact there is no historic data at all, only about 60 emails! Looking at the Virgin Media server, all the emails are still available (10,000 emails). I want to get the Archive folders back again and with their allocated emails. Please can someone help. Thank you Bolwerjr

All Replies (2)

Toad-Hall
Toad-Hall
  • Top 25 Contributor
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If you had an imap mail account then all those folders and their emails will still be on the server.

You may need to subscribe to see them.

  • Right click on imap mail account name folder in Folder Pane and select 'Subscribe'
  • Click on 'Refresh'
  • select foldres and subfolders and click on 'Subscibe'
  • click on 'OK'

Then check 'Account Settings' > 'Synchronisation & Storage' for the account. click on 'Advanced ' button and select all the required checkbox for all folders and subfolders where you want full downloaded copies of emails.


re: The solitary email account is from Virgin Media who made changes to how emails are used in third party email software. A different password had to be used and input into the 3rd party programme.

Yes - they have decided that the normal password you use when logging on to see webmail can no longer be used by third party email clients eg: Thunderbird. Instead you have to use an app specific password.

See info at this link on how to set up an app specific password: https://www.virginmedia.com/help/broadband/manage-email-account section : How to set up my Virgin Media email on a device subsection : Setting your app password to use an Email app. If you want to access your Virgin Media emails from an app, you’ll need to create a separate app password through Account settings on My Virgin Media.

For the benefit of anyone who uses Virgin Media and reads this question, please note you do not need to remove any account from Thunderbird. If you find yourself in this situation do the following: Follow instruction at the above link to create an app generated password. Get a copy of it.

In Thunderbird, Access where passwords are stored and edit the stored password.

  • Settings > Privacy & Security
  • Scroll to Passowrds section
  • click on 'Saved Passwords' button
  • click on 'Show passwords' button

You should see two lines for the account

  • incoming either 'mailbox://account... OR imap://account....
  • outgoing smtp://account....
  • Right click on each line and select 'Edit Password'
  • completely clear the contents and enter the new app genenerated password.

Then Exit Thunderbird and allow a few moments for background processes to complete. Start Thunderbird.

johnrogers-bowler
johnrogers-bowler Mai mallakar tambaya
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Unfortunately, I could not find the 'Subscribe' button. However, I went through the server set up passwords etc. and inputted all the setting as if from new and to my pleasant surprise the whole of my email setup with archives was reinstated. The last of the 400+ emails that were downloaded was notification from Virgin Media stating that they had resolved an issue with their system. It would appear Virgin Media were the root cause of the problem. Many hours wasted again due to VM issues!

Thank you for your help and advice. A good learning curve for me.