That's rather specific - only displaying the current year. Sounds like you may have Archived all previous years emails. Check the 'Archives' folder.

Toad-Hall. Thanks so much for your prompt response. I don't have an "Archives" folder (or at least I don't know if I have one somewhere) and I don't ever manually put any emails into "Archive". I note that my other folders (Read, Sent, Trash) all have complete historical records.

But if your account is IMAP your provider may have archived previous years, they may even have deleted them and that will be reflected in Thunderbird.

Matt, thanks so much for the response. I so appreciate any help. My Thunderbird account is with ATT.net and the inbound server is a POP account. When I log into the server, it does not show any incoming emails in my online Inbox (as they have already been automaticaly downloaded into Thunderbird) and I have already viewed them in my Thunderbird Inbox) and there is nothing in the server Read mail box. When I look at an email in Thunderbird I either leave it in my Inbox if I want to keep it and refer to it later or I put it in Read mail to keep a record, or I delete it or label it as Junk. So I don't understand why my pre-2024 emails disppeared from my Thunderbird InBox, unless they were somehow automatically moved into my Thunderbird Read Mail box (where messages from previous years exist). However, it is unclear if the previous years' messages in my Read Mail box are there because I soemhow moved them there or if they were automatically moved there after I read them in my Inbox. So unclear if ALL of the Inbox messages from previous years are now in the Read Mailbox or only some of them?

Pop accounts auto create certain folders the first time they are used. So if you have not archived older mail then it explains why you do not see the Archives folder. EG: If you Archive emails then the Archives folder appears.

Where is this all set up? Worth checking to make sure it is a t least all set up correctly.

• In 'Account Settings' for the pop mail account.
• Select 'Copies & Folders'
• Under 'Message Archives'
• Select 'keep message archives in:
• Select 'Archives folder on : and select the pop mail account.

There is also a 'Archives options' button - use this to choose how you want the Archives folder to store mail eg: by year.

Let's check to see what is stored in the profile.

In Thunderbird

• Help > Troubleshooting Information
• Under 'Application Basics' section - half way - Profile Folders - clickon 'Open Folder'

A new window opens showing the contents of your 'profile name' folder.

• Click on 'Mail' folder to see contents.

It should have the att.net pop account folder and also the 'Local Folders' mail account folder.

• Post image showing what you see in the Mail folder

I'm checking to see if you have more than one att.net account folder - maybe a duplicate was created ?

• click on att.net account folder to see contents
• make sure you are viewing 'details' so all the columns get displayed - need to see columns called name, modified date, type and size.
• post image showing contents.

If you have more than one att.net account folder listed then post image showing contents of both and tell us if you have more than one mail account for that server, so seeing two is expected.

Since the problem occurred have compacted anything? If you are asked to compact anything please say NO. This is important.

What Anti-Virus product do you use and also do you use any other cleanup software like CCleaner ? If yes, then I strongly advise you make the Thunderbird profile folder exempt from scanning. You do not want those types of products doing anything with your profile data.

I do not know if you have ever created a backup because now would be a good time to tell us if you have a backup. What you have told us is that when you download from server, it looks like the account is not leaving emails on server.

As emails are stored in mbox files, it means eg: all emails you have in the 'Read' folder are in reality only in a single mbox text document called 'Read'. This is somewhat a more risky way of storing emails. If something happens to that single text file then it could mean a loss of a lot of emails.

You could also run into a problem if the text file gets too large because you may need a particular type of program which can open it. If way too big, I have known it cause a computer crash in the past because it used up all available RAM. You may need to open it if trying to rescue emails. Hence why I asked for the image details to tell us the size of the mbox file.

Hence why it's a good idea to create several folder and organise the emails. Then you do not have all your 'eggs in one basket' - if you see what I mean. It also means you can set it up so locating emails is much easier. At the moment all old read emails are in one folder, so not so easy to locate stuff. Suggested Folder names eg: 'Family, Friends, Bills, Online Orders, Hobby name' etc.