2 years ago lost all e-mails when compacting. Now have to again. Backup?

8 replies
1 has this problem
9 views
Last reply by zbadger

9 years ago

zbadger

29/10/15 08:08 ಪೂರ್ವಾಹ್ನ

2 years ago I lost all e-mails when compacting. Unfortunately now I have to again.

I do not want to risk losing my special saved old e-mails. How do I best back up old e-mails to another folder or hard drive?

2 years ago I lost all e-mails when compacting. Unfortunately now I have to again. I do not want to risk losing my special saved old e-mails. How do I best back up old e-mails to another folder or hard drive?

Answer 1 · 2015-10-29 08:08:49

Zenos

29/10/15 09:05 ಪೂರ್ವಾಹ್ನ

I think you're going about it the wrong way. I allow Thunderbird to compact as and when it wants to and never have such problems.

Two suggestions for ways to preserve your current mail store:

export everything, or
create a new empty profile.

Neither is ideal; both have problems with ease of access to the older material.

Answer 2 · 2015-10-29 08:08:49

finitarry

29/10/15 09:08 ಪೂರ್ವಾಹ್ನ

You could make a backup of your profile. It is a good idea to have a backup anyway. You should be compacting your profile frequently, and not let a lot of junk pile up. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keep_it_working_-_Thunderbird http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup

Answer 3 · 2015-10-29 08:08:49

zbadger Question owner

29/10/15 09:39 ಪೂರ್ವಾಹ್ನ

I appreciate the responses but do not believe I have received an answer to my question. Perhaps some people have not had a problem with compacting but if you look at the responses on the net, many people have had a problem and like what happened to me 4 years ago (not 2 as I said), they lost all their e-mails.

So yes, I am eliminating junk or non meaningful e-mails now but I do want to save my important historical e-mails. What is the best way to save those e-mails to another repository? Thank you.

Answer 4 · 2015-10-29 08:08:49

gild

29/10/15 09:47 ಪೂರ್ವಾಹ್ನ

Both Zenos and finitarry have good suggestions, May I make one more?

Copy or move your special emails into a new folder first. Then when you compact folders, the new folder will not be compacted as there are NO deleted messages in it. When you delete or move a message, the originating folder just marks the message as deleted, it is not actually removed from the file until you 'compact' the folder. Then the file is re-written with all of the 'deleted' messages removed, making the file smaller and faster to load, search, etc.'

TB-38.3 Win10-PC