Disappearing mail

There are a variety of reasons that some or all of your messages might disappear from view in Thunderbird. Below are some things that you can try in order to get them back.

• Check to make sure that View | Messages is set to "All".

• Look in the Trash folder.

• Check to see if your anti-virus software has quarantined your inbox. Your anti-virus software might be set to do this automatically when it finds an infected message.

• Look in your profile folder to see if your mail files are still there. If so, you can try some of the things listed below. It is recommended that you first make a backup copy of your profile folder.

• Try compacting folders for the affected account by doing File -> Compact Folders.

• If you accidentally deleted a mail account, read this.

• It's possible that your prefs.js file got corrupted. Exit Thunderbird and go to your profile folder. Try replacing prefs.js with prefs.bak (renamed to prefs.js). Or, if you have a separate backup copy of prefs.js, trying replacing the existing prefs.js file with your backup copy.

• It's possible that Thunderbird somehow "forgot" the location of your profile and created a new, blank one for you. Exit Thunderbird and launch the profile manager. You may be able to launch Thunderbird with your old profile by using the profile manager.

• If your profile exists and seems to be intact but cannot be "found" by the profile manager, exit Thunderbird and launch the profile manager. Make a new profile and migrate everything over from your old profile folder to the new one.

• Try what's described in this thread.

• If all else fails, try a Mozillazine forum search for terms like "disappeared" or "vanished".