How can I restore and access the emails in my Inbox file in Profiles?
When I tried to get new emails (in Thunderbird) I was told the file folder is full and I had to compact or do something to make more space. I don't recall what I did, but now I can't view any of my old emails; only the new ones. The Inbox file in Profiles/Mail/Local Folders is about 4GB, which no doubt contains all my prior emails. How can I get Thunderbird to restore these so that I can read the emails?
All Replies (4)
the 'AppData' folders are hidden by default. Make hidden files and folders visible:
In Thunderbird Help > Troubleshooting Information click on 'show folder' button a new window opens showing the contents of your thunderbird profile folder name.
click on the 'Profiles' folder - see image below as aid In the example image, it shows I have one profile folder and I'm open on that folder. How many Profiles are listed in your 'Profiles' folder? Please post image showing what you have - like my image below.
If there is only one: click on 'Mail' folder You should see a list of mail account names including Local Folders.
how many pop mail accounts are listed and what names do they have? How many 'Local Folders' accounts are there? Ideally, post an image showing contents of 'Mail' folder.
I'm trying to work out if thunderbird lost the profile and created another or whether it lost the mail accounts and created another.
I see the profile, and all the files in it. Problem is that when I double click on the huge Inbox file and try to open it, a box asks me to choose the program I want to open the file. Thunderbird is on the list, but when I select it, nothing happens. I was wondering if that file is readable in another program.
How many Profiles are listed in your 'Profiles' folder? If only one: post an image showing contents of 'Mail' folder. If there are duplicated mail accounts, it is possible that the Account Settings are looking at the wrong one, in which case it would be simple to fix. Which mail account name has large files ? Is the Local Folders Inbox the only one with large file ?
If you have a large mbox file then it is likely to be full of emails.
Written one after the other in the order downloaded.
re :a box asks me to choose the program I want to open the file.
you would use a simple text editor program eg: Notepad however, if it is more like 2GB then Notepad will have trouble opening it. Need to try another text editor.
But at this point if TB is just pointing to the wrong directory then it can be resolved, but I would need to know what is in the 'Mail' folder.
Example: If your TB Local Folders account is actually looking at eg: Local folders-1 then you will not see the emails located in 'Local Folders'.
Thanks for your help. I got a text editor that could handle the huge file, and then opened the file and trimmed it down to a manageable size. I then set it as my TB Inbox. All the emails reappeared. I then moved the ones I wanted to keep to a local folder, and then compacted the Inbox folder. Everything is now back to normal. And I learned a valuable lesson: to compact folders.
This is now solved.