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Last Friday during an auto update Thunderbird deleted all messages, from computer and my email server; why?

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  • Last reply by christ1

thunderbirdduck
thunderbirdduck
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See title, all messages older than two months are gone forever. A few days later, all recent messages were deleted from my computer. When I mark messages on email server as unread, Thunderbird will not down load these. Thunderbird does download new external mail, but not last months, even when they have been marked unread.

See title, all messages older than two months are gone forever. A few days later, all recent messages were deleted from my computer. When I mark messages on email server as unread, Thunderbird will not down load these. Thunderbird does download new external mail, but not last months, even when they have been marked unread.

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christ1
christ1
  • Top 25 Contributor
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http://kb.mozillazine.org/Disappearing_mail

To me it sounds like your your mail file(s) got corrupted. First of all create a backup of your Thunderbird profile folder. https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profiles-tb#w_backing-up-a-profile

If you do have a backup created prior to the problem use it to restore your messages.

Otherwise you can try to rebuild the index file of the troubled folder. Right-click the folder - Properties - Repair Folder But I somehow doubt that this will bring back your messages.

Note: depending on the corruption this may erase messages from the affected folder which cannot be recovered anymore. In that case you'd need to restore them from a recent backup done prior to the corruption.

Corruption is often caused by anti-virus software messing with Thunderbird mail files. It is therefore recommended to create an exception for the Thunderbird profile folder, so that the real-time scanner won't attempt to scan the profile with your mail.

For more information on the profile location see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird

Also see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keep_it_working_-_Thunderbird