How to view the “inbox” in profiles backup appdata

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Kalin22
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Joined: January 13th, 2019, 9:41 pm

How to view the “inbox” in profiles backup appdata

Post by Kalin22 »

Desperately seeking info ! I have tried to find the answer online, but I did not succeed.

I am now using Thunderbird really for the first time( 60.4). I have to make sure my emails in Thunderbird are indeed backed up in appdata and then on my WD external drive.
I just had transferred hundreds and hundreds of emails from Vista( extension eml) via drag and drop.
( all business with attachments- important) I was able to do so because, I am able to see in “windows vista mail” the single emails with dates in my “exported file.”

I now am on windows 10 with Thunderbird. I want to view the back up of my Thunderbird emails (supposedly by now all mbox format ) in my “appdata” and WD backup . This to make sure my emails are all backed up correctly.

I do not know, if I can really check this out and view the”mbox emails” in my Thunderbird profile Inbox . Can I ?
I was always able to open backed up emails in Windows Vista in “appdata” on the external WD drive by simply right clicking the stored email( stored as long number with .eml extension and date ) ,then that email would simply open in the windows vista email program. I then could see what email it is, and if the attachment is in there . The date of the stored email would also show me if the last email was backed up.

I am unable to view the” inbox” in my profile in Thunderbird in appdata . I do not know how.

I ask myself , are all the hundreds of mails in there? I would not know what to open the “Inbox” in to see the mails. Opening in Wordpad just gives me gibberish. Consequently, I cannot check if my my new WD drive external drive stores and backs up all emails correctly.
There is no” export function” in this Thunderbird 60.4 .
There must be some way to view this inbox of Thunderbird in “appdata” is there ?
I need to be able to check the storage otherwise I must use another email program.

At this point, it seems to me the only option for me to verify and view these backed up mbox files ( presumably in inbox) seems to be to re-import them into an empty Thunderbird). That would be too much work
The Thunderbird profile does contain an" Inbox file" without extension.It is symbolized by white rectangle box which when you right click asks you “ how do you want to open it. The subfolders of the" inbox" are yet in another file, with names, but I cannot open those either

I have previously owned a laptop( windows 7) with Thunderbird 38 . I then just relied on the emails being backed up on external drive. I did not even check . After the PC crashed, I realized no” inbox” to be found in the pop server profile of my email. All was lost. I do not want this again.
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tanstaafl
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Re: How to view the “inbox” in profiles backup appdata

Post by tanstaafl »

Lets start with the basics. Are you using POP or IMAP accounts? If IMAP accounts did you leave "keep messages in all folders for this account on the computer" checked in the synchronization & storage settings?

Help -> troubleshooting information -> open folder will open Windows 10's equivalent of windows explorer at the profile. The Mbox Viewer at http://sourceforge.net/projects/mbox-viewer/ can be used to view the contents of a mbox file. A mbox file is named after the folder but has no file extension, and contains a copy of all of the messages.

If you have any IMAP accounts read http://kb.mozillazine.org/IMAP_backup . "Its dangerous to rely upon the offline folder as a backup since its contents are synchronized, its best used as a way to create mbox files that can be backed up."
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tanstaafl
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Re: How to view the “inbox” in profiles backup appdata

Post by tanstaafl »

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Importing_folders was written mainly to describe how to install the ImportExportTools add-on and use it to import mbox files. However, near the end it also talks about using it to export mbox files.

I would ignore that for the moment as the MboxViewer is a better way to verify the contents of mbox files. See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup and/or http://kb.mozillazine.org/Third_party_p ... d_services for some suggestions on how to backup profiles.
Kalin22
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Joined: January 13th, 2019, 9:41 pm

Re: How to view the “inbox” in profiles backup appdata

Post by Kalin22 »

Sorry for not getting back earlier. Thank you so much for your input!
( I was shut out of the account)

I am wondering if there is something wrong with my specific Thunderbird. Something is off.
I have read the articles about back- up on Mozillazine. I would not know which software to use
Mozback up no longe works according to website.

I have a POP account. Att.net
I am unable to add “export import tool” to the 6o.4 Thunderbird.
Adding export Import to this Version of Thunderbird is according to literature not possible

I had backed up the email with an external hardrive with my normal backup .
My issue is not just the back up alone but opening my emails in user/ appdata. I fail to be able to view the mboxes already in my appdata. I cannot open them.
That is why I tried to download the” mbox viewer” as you also suggested
I was not successful. My error? I assumed, it would add itself to the Thunderbird ,or be a program which would have the “run” command. No, I was asked.” how do I want to open it”.
Is that normal? I did not know what to do . At that point I was lost.
How does one usually add the mbox viewer ?

Another hint something maybe off with my Thunderbird was :
My Thunderbird has under “Tools” “ import mail”.
I was going to use this wizard to import mail from windows vista mail ( same PC) . This is well described on how to do . Well, my” import wizard” said the mail I could import is : ” Becky !Internet email” and “Outlook” . It did not give me the option to import a different email, although the entire Mozilla literature says I could. My expectation was, that I could choose which mail to import from. Apparentlly not possible. That is why I dragged hundred of emails by hand.
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DanRaisch
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Re: How to view the “inbox” in profiles backup appdata

Post by DanRaisch »

I assumed, it would add itself to the Thunderbird ,or be a program which would have the “run” command. No, I was asked.” how do I want to open it”.
That utility doesn't install into Thunderbird, it's a stand alone. The download of the mBoxView is a ZIP file. It must be uncomrpessed, which Win 10 should do automatically, displaying the contents of the ZIP file which is the mboxview.exe file. Extract that to a location on the hard drive and run it.
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tanstaafl
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Re: How to view the “inbox” in profiles backup appdata

Post by tanstaafl »

"Mozback up no longe works according to website."

It is no longer maintained but the beta version (use the link in the news section of the web site) works for most people. Since its not an add-on you don't need to worry about changes to the Mozilla toolkit breaking it. However, I would recommend that if you use it that you verify the restore works before relying upon it. See http://kb.mozillazine.org/MozBackup

"I am unable to add “export import tool” to the 6o.4 Thunderbird.
Adding export Import to this Version of Thunderbird is according to literature not possible
"

I'm using it with 60.4. Setting extensions.strictCompatibility false using the config editor lets you install add-ons that don't formally support 60.* . However, I wouldn't expect you need to do that as https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/th ... ls/?src=ss states "Works with Thunderbird 14.0 - 60.*"

What literature did you read?

ImportExportTools has a option to export and import profiles and its options has a tab for scheduling backups. Its not just an add-on for exporting/importing mbox and eml files.

"My issue is not just the back up alone but opening my emails in user/ appdata. I fail to be able to view the mboxes already in my appdata. I cannot open them."

Use help -> troubleshooting information -> open folder to open windows explorer/file explorer at your profile. If you can't see it or can't see mbox files in it perhaps you need to configure windows explorer to show hidden files. It is safer to rely upon help -> troubleshooting information -> open folder than to rely upon knowing where profiles are normally stored.
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tanstaafl
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Re: How to view the “inbox” in profiles backup appdata

Post by tanstaafl »

"My Thunderbird has under “Tools” “ import mail”.
I was going to use this wizard to import mail from windows vista mail ( same PC) . This is well described on how to do . Well, my” import wizard” said the mail I could import is : ” Becky !Internet email” and “Outlook” . It did not give me the option to import a different email, although the entire Mozilla literature says I could. My expectation was, that I could choose which mail to import from. Apparentlly not possible. That is why I dragged hundred of emails by hand.
"

That is the built in tools -> import function. It supports importing from a few email clients, if it detects that they are installed. It doesn't support importing from another Thunderbird profile (never understood why they didn't implement that). https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/sw ... hunderbird states "To use Thunderbird's import wizard, you must use an older version of Thunderbird, because the wizard is disabled for Outlook and Eudora in Thunderbird version 38 and newer versions" . However, http://kb.mozillazine.org/Import_.pst_files states "Importing from Outlook in the built-in import wizard was disabled in version 38 as it broke. This was fixed in version 58. If it breaks again you can work around this by temporarily using an older version of Thunderbird."
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