Restoring Old Folders
I had a system crash a few years ago and managed to retrieve some Thunderbird files/folders but not through a proper backup/restore method How can I restore these folders so I can see this old mail? I know there are some items in there from home improvements correspondence/receipts/invoices etc that I would like to access The data is clearly there, I'm just not sure how to restore these so I can actually open and read these folders content. (Some of these locations may be suspect as I attempted to move them where I thought they might be visible - for example those 'archive' files are in my actual profile, but nothing is visible in the actual application)
Appreciate any assistance on how I can do this :)
Wšě wotmołwy (7)
Copy the mbox files, the large ones of File Type, with no extensions, to the Mail/Local Folders location of the current profile, while TB is closed. For some reason, your 3rd picture indicates 'Local Folders' is a subfolder of mail.comcast.net, when the correct Local Folders is a subfolder of Mail.
Thanks for your help! It is surely appreciated! Just to clarify - were you suggesting to take (only) the two files circled in the second image and copy/paste into the Mail/Local Folders Folder? Should I not also be moving the .msf files? So I did that and still nothing shows up and tried 'repair' on that local folder in attempt to resolve - still nothing.
I'm not sure how I did this but have two local folders See below
Just copy the mbox files, the msf files will be rebuilt when TB restarts.
You have 3 'Local Folders': one in the account folder, one with the blue icon, and one that's a subfolder of the previous one. The one with the blue icon appears to be the correct place to copy the mbox files. But if I were you, I would create a new profile, from Help/Troubleshooting, about:profiles, and reorganize the structure, and not name anything 'Local Folders' besides the default one.
Thanks for your patience as I struggle through this!
Just copy the mbox files,
You mean the inbox and sent files (the large size files)? I have done that and still nothing shows. (see my first image in second post above)
Yes, the large files Inbox and Sent.
The place you copied them to is not the same as the location specified in Account Settings, D:\Thunderbird Mail Archives. Which is why I recommend a new profile to clear up this confusing setup.
OK - I made a new profile and copied those 2007 - 2012 files and they all appeared and can open in that new profile! Thank you! But that other large 'inbox file' - the 2.8 GB one (I don't care so much about the sent files) I similarly moved into same location and that one still shows blank - I tried re-naming (a copy) before moving and same result Almost there - just that one chunk to resolve Thanks again for bearing with me on this
I don't know why the Inbox file isn't readable, but maybe it's corrupted. See this post about a possible way to recover it.