Disappearing mail: Difference between revisions

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==Part II==
==Part II==
'''Situation''': same as Part I, but the things listed in Part I did not solve the problem. Before proceeding, look in your [[Thunderbird : FAQs : Profile folder | profile folder]] to see if your mail files are still there. If so, you can try some of the things listed below but first '''make a temporary [[Profile backup|backup]]''' copy of your profile folder.
'''Situation''': same as Part I, but the things listed in Part I did not solve the problem. Before proceeding, 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 but first '''make a temporary [[Profile backup|backup]]''' copy of your profile folder.


* Try [[Thunderbird : Tips : Compacting Folders | compacting folders]] for the affected account.
* Try [[compacting folders]] for the affected account.


* It's possible that the ".msf" files (index files) are corrupted. Try going to your [[Thunderbird : FAQs : Profile folder | profile folder]] and deleting them. They will be rebuilt when Thunderbird starts up.
* It's possible that the ".msf" files (index files) are corrupted. Try going to your [[profile folder]] and deleting them. They will be rebuilt when Thunderbird starts up.


* If mail disappeared from the message list immediately after you renamed a mail folder or subfolder, try exiting Thunderbird and restarting. If that doesn't work, try exiting Thunderbird, going to your [[Thunderbird : FAQs : Profile folder | profile folder]] and renaming the corresponding mail file. [http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=81952]
* If mail disappeared from the message list immediately after you renamed a mail folder or subfolder, try exiting Thunderbird and restarting. If that doesn't work, try exiting Thunderbird, going to your [[profile folder]] and renaming the corresponding mail file. [http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=81952]


* If mail for one entire account (or perhaps every account that uses the [[Global Inbox]]) is suddenly no longer available when you (re)start Thunderbird but your account settings are still all in place, go to your profile folder and see if there exists a duplicate of the mail storage folder for the account. For instance, for a single POP3 account that is not using the Global Inbox: in the "Mail" folder, if the folder for the account is called "mail.myISP.com", see if there is also a folder called "mail.myISP.com'''-1'''". If so, see which folder is actually holding your mail (the file sizes should be very different). You can then either restart Thunderbird and point it to the correct folder as described [http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=1439450#1439450 here], or you can manually copy the mail to the other folder and restart Thunderbird. If successful, you can go back to your profile folder and manually delete the unused folder.
* If mail for one entire account (or perhaps every account that uses the [[Global Inbox]]) is suddenly no longer available when you (re)start Thunderbird but your account settings are still all in place, go to your profile folder and see if there exists a duplicate of the mail storage folder for the account. For instance, for a single POP3 account that is not using the Global Inbox: in the "Mail" folder, if the folder for the account is called "mail.myISP.com", see if there is also a folder called "mail.myISP.com'''-1'''". If so, see which folder is actually holding your mail (the file sizes should be very different). You can then either restart Thunderbird and point it to the correct folder as described [http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=1439450#1439450 here], or you can manually copy the mail to the other folder and restart Thunderbird. If successful, you can go back to your profile folder and manually delete the unused folder.

Revision as of 12:51, 26 December 2005

This article was written for Thunderbird but also applies to the Mozilla Suite (though some menu sequences may differ).


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.

Part I

Situation: Thunderbird is running but you can't figure out where some of your messages went or why they can't be viewed. Below are the first things you should try.

  • Check to make sure that "View -> Messages" and "View -> Threads" are both set to "All".
  • Look in the Junk and Trash folders. Depending on how you have the Junk Mail Controls set up, messages can be sent automatically to the Junk folder or Trash.
  • If you have set up message filters, some of your incoming messages might be getting sent to folders other than the Inbox. Check your filter definitions in "Tools -> Message Filters" and choosing the problematic account from the top drop-down-list. You can check the log file by pressing "Filter Log"; if logging is disabled you may want to enable it to help if the problem recurs.
  • Check to see if your anti-virus software has quarantined or deleted your Inbox. Your anti-virus software might be set to do this automatically when it finds an infected message. [1][2]
  • Check for incoming messages that might have been sent with an incorrect date. When messages are sorted in Thunderbird according to "date", this is the date, year and time indicated by the sender, although these are often incorrectly set. This can make a message received today "hide" anywhere among old messages in the list. Unfortunately, Thunderbird still cannot show the date (and time) the message was actually received (even though this information is in each message's header). A workaround is to show messages in the order received ("View -> Sort by -> Order Received"). Keep in mind, however, that Thunderbird changes the "order-received number" each time you manually move a message to another folder; as a result, if you change your mind and move a month-old message back into the Inbox, it will be listed as the newest message.
  • Similarly, check to make sure the system date on your computer is correct. Sometimes the messages are there, but because the system date is incorrect, the messages appear out of sequence in the mail folder.
  • If you are using the message aging feature, it will permanently delete messages based upon your settings.
  • If your mail folders vanished because you deleted a mail account by clicking on the "Remove Account" button in Thunderbird, read this.

Part II

Situation: same as Part I, but the things listed in Part I did not solve the problem. Before proceeding, 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 but first make a temporary backup copy of your profile folder.

  • It's possible that the ".msf" files (index files) are corrupted. Try going to your profile folder and deleting them. They will be rebuilt when Thunderbird starts up.
  • If mail disappeared from the message list immediately after you renamed a mail folder or subfolder, try exiting Thunderbird and restarting. If that doesn't work, try exiting Thunderbird, going to your profile folder and renaming the corresponding mail file. [3]
  • If mail for one entire account (or perhaps every account that uses the Global Inbox) is suddenly no longer available when you (re)start Thunderbird but your account settings are still all in place, go to your profile folder and see if there exists a duplicate of the mail storage folder for the account. For instance, for a single POP3 account that is not using the Global Inbox: in the "Mail" folder, if the folder for the account is called "mail.myISP.com", see if there is also a folder called "mail.myISP.com-1". If so, see which folder is actually holding your mail (the file sizes should be very different). You can then either restart Thunderbird and point it to the correct folder as described here, or you can manually copy the mail to the other folder and restart Thunderbird. If successful, you can go back to your profile folder and manually delete the unused folder.
  • If mail fails to appear in Thunderbird after migrating: for each folder directory (e.g., "Foldername.sbd"), make sure there is a corresponding mail file (e.g., "Foldername"), even if there is no mail at that level. [4]. If there isn't a corresponding mail file, you can simply make an empty text tile and save it with the appropriate name (but make sure to save it without the ".txt" extension).
  • In some situations, it's possible that messages have been marked for deletion but have not yet been erased from the mail file; they are simply hidden from display. To recover such messages, try what's described in this thread. (If you have already compacted folders, you will need to try this using the mail files from the temporary backup of your profile.)
  • There has been at least one instance, due to a bug in Thunderbird or keyboard malfunction etc., where Thunderbird will enter a infinitely recursive loop of some kind. The only way to exit this loop is to force-quit Thunderbird. When Thunderbird was re-opened, all mail in the current folder had disappeared. Upon opening the mail file, it was determined that all messages that were previously in the folder were still physically there, but they were marked with a X-Mozilla-Status of 0008. This issue is similar to the previous issue above and solved in a similar manner. After making a full backup of all mail folders, the following command may be used to restore ALL mail that was ever in a folder, including messages moved and deleted since the last compact. (In this example, the "Inbox" file is used. Substitute "Inbox" with your actual mailbox file.)
cat Inbox | sed -e 's/^X-Mozilla-Status: ....$/X-Mozilla-Status: 0011/' > Inbox.2 
mv Inbox.2 Inbox

Part III

Situation: you launch Thunderbird and the Account Wizard pops up. It seems that all of your accounts and account information have vanished. This is likely due to one of the following: (1) Thunderbird created a new, entirely blank profile when starting up or (2) your prefs.js file, which is stored in your profile folder and contains your account settings, got corrupted. Before proceeding, it is recommended that you make a temporary backup of your profile folder if you have not already done so.

Thunderbird created a blank profile

At first glance it might not be easy to tell if Thunderbird has started up with a blank profile profile or if prefs.js has become corrupted. A quick test: if all of your accounts are missing when you start up Thunderbird but your Personal Address Book (with previously entered contacts) still exists, or if your previously installed themes or extensions still exist, this indicates that Thunderbird is still using your old profile and has not created a new, blank one. If absolutely nothing from your profile—accounts, address books, themes, extensions, etc.—appears when you start up Thunderbird, then it is probably the case that Thunderbird has created and started up with blank, completely empty profile. In the latter case, here are some things you can try:

  • Exit Thunderbird and launch the Profile Manager. You might be able to launch Thunderbird with your old profile by using the Profile Manager.
  • If this doesn't work, exit Thunderbird and find where your profile folder is stored on your computer. You might be able to get Thunderbird to "find" your profile again by opening the "profiles.ini" file with a text editor such as Notepad and correcting the line for "Path" if it seems to be incorrect. See "Method 1" here for further information.
  • If your profile exists and seems to be intact but cannot be "found" by the Profile Manager, and if editing "profiles.ini" as mentioned above did not work, exit Thunderbird and launch the Profile Manager. Make a new profile and migrate everything over from your old profile folder to the new one, using "Method 2" here. (Note: if the problem is in fact a corrupt prefs.js file, migrating the profile in this way will not help since this does not fix the bad prefs.js file.)
  • If you still cannot get the old profile to work, you can restore your mail, address books, etc. by creating a new profile with the Profile Manager, manually setting up all your accounts as they were before, and then copying your mail, address books, filters, and other mail-related files from the old profile to the new one as described here.

prefs.js corruption

If it seems that Thunderbird is still using your old profile but all of your account settings have been lost, your prefs.js file could be corrrupt. Normally prefs.js will contain numerous lines of text which specify your account settings such as your e-mail addresses, incoming and outgoing servers, etc. If you open prefs.js with a text editor such as Notepad and don't find any of these (example), you can assume that your prefs.js file has become badly corrupted and will need to be replaced or rebuilt. Things you can try:

  • Exit Thunderbird, go to your profile folder, make a temporary backup copy of prefs.js, and then replace the prefs.js in your profile folder with a copy of prefs.js from the last backup you made of your profile. If you made your last backup using the MozBackup utility, you can get the backed-up prefs.js by unzipping the ".pcv" backup file as described here (see "Problems restoring with MozBackup?" section). If you do not have a backup copy of "prefs.js" but your profile folder contains a "prefs.bak" file, you can try renaming "prefs.bak" to "prefs.js".
  • If you do not have a good backup copy of prefs.js, you will need to rebuild it. It is recommended that you do so by making a new profile with the Profile Manager, manually setting up all your accounts as they were before, and then copying your mail, address books, filters, and other mail-related files from the old profile to the new one as described here.