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Using an IMAP server, server had to reload from a backup, existing mail is now gone, thought thunderbird would keep a copy?

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  • Last reply by Matt

Rodimus
Rodimus
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I have a VPS with (name hidden to protect company). My web sites and email services all run from this single VPS (terrible I know, but money prohibits expansion). One of my customers web sites got hacked and corrupted permissions on the entire server. It had to be rebuilt, and restored from a backup. All the mail that was on the server between the backup and current day were lost. Somehow, thunderbird, didn't keep copies like it usually does. It deleted all the folders and files associated with the missing data. I have been using thunderbird for over 15 years, and this is the first time I have had this happen. Any known way to recover those missing folders and all that mail? It is causing customers to lose business, and makes me look like a complete moron. Thanks for any and all help.

For reference purposes, server uses IMAP, folders were synchronized, keep messages, check, never delete messages, check, show only subscribed folders- unchecked.

I have a VPS with (name hidden to protect company). My web sites and email services all run from this single VPS (terrible I know, but money prohibits expansion). One of my customers web sites got hacked and corrupted permissions on the entire server. It had to be rebuilt, and restored from a backup. All the mail that was on the server between the backup and current day were lost. Somehow, thunderbird, didn't keep copies like it usually does. It deleted all the folders and files associated with the missing data. I have been using thunderbird for over 15 years, and this is the first time I have had this happen. Any known way to recover those missing folders and all that mail? It is causing customers to lose business, and makes me look like a complete moron. Thanks for any and all help. For reference purposes, server uses IMAP, folders were synchronized, keep messages, check, never delete messages, check, show only subscribed folders- unchecked.

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Matt
Matt
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IMAP in Thunderbird, or any mail client really, is not much better than a temporary cache, as soon as the mail disappears from the server it is deleted from the local folders to match.

POP makes a permanent local record as there is no synchronization involved.

What you can probably do is copy out the relevant MBOX files used in the account to local folders and undelete the contents of the file by changing the status of the mails to new

Open the backup in local folders using notepad or other unicode text editor and replace all X-Mozilla-Status: 0008 with X-Mozilla-Status: 0000 Note that very bad things happen if you try and edit a file used by Thunderbird when it is actually running.