Thunderbird and IMAP webmail settings

[MrsRonnie]

Hi All

A colleague has mislaid all of their emails from the Inbox on Thunderbird. I have managed to find some of them - the last week's worth was in the Deleted folder. When he deletes emails, they automatically go into the Trash folder, so I don't know how they ended up in Deleted, but they did. I don't know if it was something he did, or Thunderbird, or Outlook. Absolutely no idea.

The rest have completely disappeared, but I have the back-up from a week ago, so still have copies of the lost ones.

The first problem I had was that, when I restored last week's Profile back-up, the emails disappeared again straight away as TB synced with Outlook.

Second problem, having realised that disconnecting from the internet would stop the sync, is that I don't seem to be able to move the emails from the Inbox to a new Inbox in Local Folders - a pop-up appears saying "failed to connect to server outlook.outlook365.com.

If I "work offline", it asks if I want to download messages first. But all the messages are there - I can read them. I just can't move them.

Any suggestions on how I can save the messages somewhere so they're not all lost forever?

TIA

Ronnie

[didds]

If you login to the email account online ie through a web browser, what do you see there?

I would expect (?) that if set up for imap as soon as thunderbird connects to the mail server it replicates what it sees there - in my layman;'s understanding of it all.

didds

[MrsRonnie]

"If you login to the email account online ie through a web browser, what do you see there?"

The same as is on Thunderbird before I restore the old emails. That's the problem - I restore the old emails, then Thunderbird syncs with the web server, which causes the restored emails to be deleted again.

"I would expect (?) that if set up for imap as soon as thunderbird connects to the mail server it replicates what it sees there - in my layman;'s understanding of it all."

Yes, exactly - I dislike IMAP for precisely for this reason. What's the point of having a TB back-up if it's just going to revert to what's on the server?

I don't understand why TB won't let me copy/move the restored emails into a Local Folder.

[mc2fool]

If I "work offline", it asks if I want to download messages first. But all the messages are there - I can read them. I just can't move them.

And if to the download first question you say "Later"? Also, if you try copying rather than moving?

[MrsRonnie]

If I "work offline", it asks if I want to download messages first. But all the messages are there - I can read them. I just can't move them.

And if to the download first question you say "Later"? Also, if you try copying rather than moving?

Saying Later doesn't change anything. And I can neither copy nor move the emails.

[mc2fool]

Saying Later doesn't change anything. And I can neither copy nor move the emails.

So what does it say/do when you try to do so once you are in Work Offline mode?

[didds]

"If you login to the email account online ie through a web browser, what do you see there?"

The same as is on Thunderbird before I restore the old emails. That's the problem - I restore the old emails, then Thunderbird syncs with the web server, which causes the restored emails to be deleted again.

they get deleted from thunderbird or the imap server?

If thunderbird then its doing what I thin it shoud be doing - reverting to what is on the imap server.

In your thunderbird list of inboxes and folders etc do you see one named sometyhing like outlook, or imap, or remote or whatever? that AIUI is the ACTUAL set of folders on the remote im,ap servers. (yeah I know... bit odd !).

Anyway if you can identify those "remote" folders and you drop the recovered emaisl into THAT folder what ahppens then?

didds

[MrsRonnie]

"If you login to the email account online ie through a web browser, what do you see there?"

The same as is on Thunderbird before I restore the old emails. That's the problem - I restore the old emails, then Thunderbird syncs with the web server, which causes the restored emails to be deleted again.

they get deleted from thunderbird or the imap server?

If thunderbird then its doing what I thin it shoud be doing - reverting to what is on the imap server.

In your thunderbird list of inboxes and folders etc do you see one named sometyhing like outlook, or imap, or remote or whatever? that AIUI is the ACTUAL set of folders on the remote im,ap servers. (yeah I know... bit odd !).

Anyway if you can identify those "remote" folders and you drop the recovered emaisl into THAT folder what ahppens then?

didds

Ah, you misunderstand slightly. When I restore the old emails, what I am actually doing is restoring the TB profile back to a week ago, so they are *in* that folder already. Any emails from after the back-up was taken are still sitting on the server waiting to be downloaded to TB.

I can't move the old emails *out* of that folder without being online because, as soon as I go online, it syncs with the server and I am back to square one.

[didds]

ah gotcha now.

guessing now... bear with me...

go offline. either in some available mode, or cut the internet connection.

restore TB profile


create new local folder(s)

move restored emails into new local folder(s)

reconnect to internet/go online...

what happens?

(apologies if this is what you've already tried!)


I'm afraid I'm out of ideas after that

didds

[MrsRonnie]

restore TB profile


create new local folder(s)

move restored emails into new local folder(s)

reconnect to internet/go online...



didds

I have created the new local folder. I can't move or copy the emails anywhere - TB won't let me. It tells me it's unable to connect to the server.

So, despite being able to see the text of the emails, I don't think they're actually "downloaded" for some reason. Which is odd, because I recall when getting mail that it says, "downloading X of Y" at the bottom of the TB screen.

[mc2fool]

I have created the new local folder. I can't move or copy the emails anywhere - TB won't let me. It tells me it's unable to connect to the server.

Just to be clear, it tells you that even though you are in Work Offline mode?!?

[MrsRonnie]

I have created the new local folder. I can't move or copy the emails anywhere - TB won't let me. It tells me it's unable to connect to the server.

Just to be clear, it tells you that even though you are in Work Offline mode?!?

The message was with the internet disconnected, not in Work Offline mode.

In Work Offline mode, it just doesn't do anything. It won't let me move or copy, either by dragging or by right-clicking and selecting Copy To...

[mc2fool]

In Work Offline mode, it just doesn't do anything. It won't let me move or copy, either by dragging or by right-clicking and selecting Copy To...

Hmmm...how strange. So it won't let you select a message? Or Copy To is disabled (greyed out)?

It'd be best if you could try and find a solution to do what you want within the TBird interface, but if not (and as I'm just about to go out and can't do an afternoon of try-this try-that ), if all else fails you can try an external to TBird solution...

Exit Thunderbird
Locate and open the restored profile folder. Should be C:\Users\you\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\profile.default\
Within it open the ImapMail folder and within that you should find a folder named as per the server of your Outlook account
Open that folder and copy INBOX and INBOX.msf
Go back to the profile folder and open the Mail folder and within that open the Local Folders folder
Paste the two files copied above into the Local Folders folder and
To avoid any confusion, rename the files to RestoredInbox and RestoredInbox.msf respectively, or similar.

Now restart Thunderbird and you should see a RestoredInbox folder under Local Folders with all your messages in it.

That's the theory, anyway

[Infrasonic]

If you've got webmail access to the server then set up a POP3 inbox mirror copy to another webmail account as a safety first.
POP3 is properly physically 'downloaded'. If you untick any 'delete from server' sync options it becomes an automated inbox archive effectively rather than a 'mirror sync' , so any subsequent data loss issues with the master account aren't copied across.
IMAP is great for multiple client viewing with folder hierarchy in tact but has limitations when things go wrong, as you've discovered.

I have a dual IMAP/POP3 system in place for mirroring my main aggregator/domain accounts to other accounts on an entirely different email platform for redundancy. All email clients view via IMAP.
The downside of the POP3 inbox is it is just that, the inbox, no folder hierarchy (unlike IMAP). But as an online webmail/client safety copy it works fine as long as you keep an eye on the inbox data limits.

[Nocton]

It won't help with your current problem, but may I recommend that you back up regularly using MozBackup.
https://download.cnet.com/MozBackup/300 ... 60383.html

It is not being developed any more, but it works well in my experience. I've never had a problem with it and been using it for years. It is very handy when you change computers or want to install same settings on another computer. Just backup and restore in a few minutes.

[tjh290633]

I have TB set up to leave the emails on the server for 2 weeks after downloading, so that my mobile can always see the most recent ones.

Every now and then it decides that POP3 cannot download the emails because it cannot leave the downloaded ones on the website. Restarting TB sorts that one out.

It may have no relevance here, but you never know.

TJH