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missing folders

  • 3 replies
  • 14 have this problem
  • 55 views
  • Last reply by PHLXCISO

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Question: I use, and have been using for years, Thunderbird as my email program. My email arrives through my university, which uses Exchange mail. Thus, in the left field of Thunderbird appears the folder for Exchange and the subfolders --- inbox, drafts, sent, trash --- as well as a number of folders I had created. Suddenly almost all of the folders I had created disappeared from view within Thunderbird, though they remain in Exchange. How do I get these folders back. This problem has occurred on both my machines. Both machines run Ubuntu, one 12.04 LTS and the other 14.04 LTS. I am using version 31 of Thunderbird.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Warning: I am a complete neophyte at these things.

Question: I use, and have been using for years, Thunderbird as my email program. My email arrives through my university, which uses Exchange mail. Thus, in the left field of Thunderbird appears the folder for Exchange and the subfolders --- inbox, drafts, sent, trash --- as well as a number of folders I had created. Suddenly almost all of the folders I had created disappeared from view within Thunderbird, though they remain in Exchange. How do I get these folders back. This problem has occurred on both my machines. Both machines run Ubuntu, one 12.04 LTS and the other 14.04 LTS. I am using version 31 of Thunderbird. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Warning: I am a complete neophyte at these things.

Chosen solution

I would guess from your description, and the lack of support in Thunderbird for Exchange's proprietary protocols, that you have been using IMAP to allow Thunderbird to "see" server-side mail folders.

Do check the subscriptions in Thunderbird (right-click a folder and select Subscribe) to ensure that the missing folders are still selected and subscribed.

In my experience, when Thunderbird updates, some settings can be lost and then may revert to default values. It may have "forgotten" these folders.

The options under Edit|Account Settings|<select account>|Synchronization & Storage may also be of use to you.

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Chosen Solution

I would guess from your description, and the lack of support in Thunderbird for Exchange's proprietary protocols, that you have been using IMAP to allow Thunderbird to "see" server-side mail folders.

Do check the subscriptions in Thunderbird (right-click a folder and select Subscribe) to ensure that the missing folders are still selected and subscribed.

In my experience, when Thunderbird updates, some settings can be lost and then may revert to default values. It may have "forgotten" these folders.

The options under Edit|Account Settings|<select account>|Synchronization & Storage may also be of use to you.

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Thank you very much. This did the trick.

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I may have solved this problem which I also have. I used the search feature and chose the BODY option. I then entered a common word as my search argument. The search yielded many E-Mails in different unseen folders. When I clicked on OPEN IN FOLDER all of my missing folders magically reappeared in the Left Pane.