Pop account removed: where are its e-mails?

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Dirki
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Pop account removed: where are its e-mails?

Post by Dirki »

I had have two accounts of the same e-mail address, one pop, the other an IMAP account. I just have removed the pop account with this options:
Image

Now I cannot find the e-mails of the removed account. Where could I find them? How could I display / search them like usal?
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DanRaisch
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Re: Pop account removed: where are its e-mails?

Post by DanRaisch »

The old data should be in the profile folder -- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird

Search under C:\Users\WINUSERID\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\RANDOM.default\Mail\SUB-FOLDER_with a name_referencing_PROVIDER. That is the final sub-folder might be named something like pop.gmail.com if Google is the email provider. You can use an mBox viewer program (like https://www.freeviewer.org/mbox/ ) to view the message files that will have names matching those of the various folders, such as Inbox, Sent, Trash, Drafts, etc.
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tanstaafl
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Re: Pop account removed: where are its e-mails?

Post by tanstaafl »

They should be in the old "local directory" (the top level directory used by the account) for the account in the ..\Mail tree of the profile. It might be named pop.name_of_email_provider.com, possibly with a numeric suffix.

You could copy the contents of the old accounts directory into a subdirectory of "Local Folders" if you understand the layout of a profile, or import those mbox files ("inbox." and "sent." for example) into a subdirectory of Local Folders using Tools -> Import -> Import from another Thunderbird installation. Recent versions of Thunderbird have a healthy subset of the functionality of the ImportExportToolsNG add-on built-in.

The main reason to recover the contents of the deleted POP account would be if you had also deleted those messages in the IMAP account. I suggest you check first to see if a copy of what you are looking for is still in the IMAP account. Both accounts used the same mailbox, they just treated the mail differently.

The associated *.msf file just has status information/flags, it doesn't have any messages, The *.sbd files are subdirectories used to organize mbox files and the associated *.msf file into a folder hierarchy.

You can use tools like the Mbox Viewer at https://sourceforge.net/projects/mbox-viewer/ to verify the messages are in a specific mbox file, and read its messages. T
Dirki
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Re: Pop account removed: where are its e-mails?

Post by Dirki »

Thank you very much!
The old data should be in the profile folder -- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird
Yes, found it, thank you.
You can use an mBox viewer program (like https://www.freeviewer.org/mbox/ ) to view the message files that will have names matching those of the various folders, such as Inbox, Sent, Trash, Drafts, etc.
Many thanks for the link. So I have to use two programs to view / find the e-mails. So there is no way to show them in Thunderbird anymore. Could I re-create the old account to get the e-mails back and make them searchable / useble like before? Does not seem to work here. So I had all of my e-mails in a single program again, in Thunderbird?

So it appears actually I should have left the accounts like they were in Thunderbird. There seems to be no benefit of having removed the accounts (respectively the account informations).
They should be in the old "local directory" (the top level directory used by the account) for the account in the ..\Mail tree of the profile. It might be named pop.name_of_email_provider.com, possibly with a numeric suffix.
I opened a folder of another, same kind of pop account to get to the location the removed account was, so I assume here really is the data of the removed account:
Image

So the pop data seems to be here:
Image

But there does not appear to be the IMAP data here:
Image

There is not shown a single e-mail in the IMAP account in any box:
Image

So obviously they are removed (from the account) as well? Why does Thunderbird do it? What is the sense of it? Actually I wanted these messages be kept in Thunderbird (and all of the others as well).
The main reason to recover the contents of the deleted POP account would be if you had also deleted those messages in the IMAP account.
Oops. OK. I removed two accounts altogether, respectively the account information, not (intentionally at least) their data / e-mails / contents.

I have a back up of my portable Thunderbird. But in that the new e-mails of the last weeks are missing. So the last back up I did some weeks ago. Could I somehow get the new e-mails to it? And so use that back up still having all of the accounts (information)?

One of the two accounts (respectively its account information) I have re-created, there are only in the "Sent" box a few e-mails from 2021 and 2020 and two new test e-mails from yesterday. Why is that? A few old e-mails left? Also in the "Trash" box, some old e-mails left which I actually think to already have deleted a long time ago. And two deleted e-mails yesterday.

So just having done a back up before removing account settings would have been one of the greatest ideas and have been really smart, I suppose...well, well...

When I search for the e-mail address of one of the removed information (of the account)
Image
nothing is shown, the circle is moving, turning all the time, showing an action is running obviously:
Image
I suggest you check first to see if a copy of what you are looking for is still in the IMAP account.
So searching for the e-mail address of the account I removed the account information from in Thunderbird does not work because these e-mails are not shown / searchable anymore, I guess:
Image

I cannot find any such folder / file here:
\ThunderbirdPortable\Data\profile\ImapMail
and here
\ThunderbirdPortable\Data\profile\Mail

I cannot find any folder with the username, that seems to contain the e-mails. These folders have the username in its name, but their creation dates are yesterday and I assume there is no folder having a size or file with such a size (on the right side) that could contain thousands of e-mails:
Image

Where else could I look?
You can use tools like the Mbox Viewer at https://sourceforge.net/projects/mbox-viewer/ to verify the messages are in a specific mbox file, and read its messages. T
Thank you!
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DanRaisch
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Re: Pop account removed: where are its e-mails?

Post by DanRaisch »

The searching should not be conducted within the Thunderbird program but at the operating system level, and the directory names would not contain the username but would include the name of the email provider. For instance pop.gmail.com for a Google mail account, as noted above. You can see the equivalent sub-directories for the IMAP accounts in the list of IMAP account, noted as imap.gmail.com and mx.freenet-1.com, mx.freenet-2.com, etc Opening those sub-directories at the operating system level would show the files containing local copies of the messages stored on the IMAP server.

I suggested the mbox viewer program as you stated that you have intentionally removed the POP account, leaving me with the impression that you did not want/require data from that account as it could be duplicated in the IMAP version of the account.
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tanstaafl
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Re: Pop account removed: where are its e-mails?

Post by tanstaafl »

"So I have to use two programs to view / find the e-mails. So there is no way to show them in Thunderbird anymore. Could I re-create the old account to get the e-mails back and make them searchable / useble like before?"

You can import the mail back into Thunderbird. However it doesn't sound like you are familiar enough with how Thunderbird stores mail to just move the mbox files to "Local Folders" via windows explorer. I suggest you use the built in "Tools -> Import -> Import from another Thunderbird installation" feature to import the old mail folders into the "Local Folders" special account. Once you can view them there you can either leave them be or move them using Thunderbird to your IMAP account.

IMAP and POP accounts default to different storage locations. So don't read too much into a IMAP account not seeing mbox files from a deleted POP account. Its also likely when you added the old POP account again that it defaulted to a different storage location. That means it doesn't know about the old mail files. Since you know where the mbox files were stored you could modify the "local directory" at the bottom of the POP account server settings to use the directory where the old "inbox. mbox file is. That is the simplest solution to get your old mail back. Once its back you don't have to keep the restored POP account, you could move the mail into "Local Folders" and then delete the POP account.
Dirki
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Re: Pop account removed: where are its e-mails?

Post by Dirki »

The searching should not be conducted within the Thunderbird program but at the operating system level, and the directory names would not contain the username but would include the name of the email provider.
I have found in the ImapMail folder a folder with my username and the servername I created yesterday after having removed (the information) of the same account for pop, this one:
https://i.imgur.com/ZwnRfPY.png
But I cannot find that pop account (in the folder "Mail" or elswhere) or find the e-mails there which are in the removed (information about the) account. I searched / looked for different phrases in the folder names, but I could not find that account. And I searched in that MBOX Viewer manually without success. I searched in this folders:
Mail
ImapMail

Are there other locations the e-mails could be? If it only were these ones it should not that hard to find the folder.
I suggested the mbox viewer program as you stated that you have intentionally removed the POP account, leaving me with the impression that you did not want/require data from that account as it could be duplicated in the IMAP version of the account.
I cannot imagine what words led to that impression, but I am very sorry for having caused that confusion.

The folder of the other pop account I have found and viewed with that MBOX viewer the e-mails, do not know if every e-mail of the missing ones are in there. How could I find out that?

So I have find the pop folder from the one account I removed the information of:
Image

There are also templates, drafts in it.
However it doesn't sound like you are familiar enough with how Thunderbird stores mail
Yes, I am afraid, that is true.

So this folder contains ALL, without exception, e-mails from that account? Or might there be another folder else?
I suggest you use the built in "Tools -> Import -> Import from another Thunderbird installation" feature to import the old mail folders into the "Local Folders" special account.
Can I avoid to import duplicate e-mails? But actually there can not be any, I assume. Because they cannot have been mixed with the pop and the IMAP account, I assume. So this option for a single or two folders:
Image

With "Import from another Thunderbird installation" one could import complete e-mails of a profile together, IMAP and pop, I guess.
IMAP and POP accounts default to different storage locations. So don't read too much into a IMAP account not seeing mbox files from a deleted POP account.
Sorry I do not understand the second sentence, what does that mean?
Its also likely when you added the old POP account again that it defaulted to a different storage location. That means it doesn't know about the old mail files. Since you know where the mbox files were stored you could modify the "local directory" at the bottom of the POP account server settings to use the directory where the old "inbox. mbox file is. That is the simplest solution to get your old mail back. Once its back you don't have to keep the restored POP account, you could move the mail into "Local Folders" and then delete the POP account.
Sorry, I am not quite sure to understand that completely, but I hopoe I will when doing the import and after.

So before removing an account (only its information) one should archive the e-mails? Or / and do anything else?
Last edited by Dirki on November 29th, 2022, 6:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
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tanstaafl
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Re: Pop account removed: where are its e-mails?

Post by tanstaafl »

Deleting a POP account doesn't normally delete its files (such as the mbox files that store its messages). Look in the ..\Mail directory tree for a directory name that includes the mail server name. It may have a numeric suffix after it.

Imap accounts are normally in the ..\ImapMail directorytree. By default message synchronizing is enabled so you can import its mbox files. The mbox files are just managed differently than ones in a POP account (for example they will disappear if you delete the corresponding folder on the IMAP server).
Dirki
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Re: Pop account removed: where are its e-mails?

Post by Dirki »

Very hard to find those e-mail folders in the "Mail", ImapMail folder, one of them has a completey different name than the account has.

How could I synchronize the e-mails of the removed pop account with the new IMAP account with the same e-mail address?

Or might it be possible to just start the backed up Thunderbird (with that account still being existing) and drag the e-mails from the Inbox, etc. to the new account with the same e-mail address of the original Thunderbird? But obviously it is not possible to open a second instance / a second Thunderbird.

Or might it be possible to just start the backed up Thunderbird (with that account still being existing) and drag the e-mails from the Inbox, etc.
https://i.imgur.com/bUnjsEE.png
to a folder in Win (I would name Inbox, Sent, etc.)?

And then I would drag the eMails from the folders in Win to the new account with the same e-mail address of the original Thunderbird?
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tanstaafl
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Re: Pop account removed: where are its e-mails?

Post by tanstaafl »

"How could I synchronize the e-mails of the removed pop account with the new IMAP account with the same e-mail address?"

Simplest way would be to import the folders into a child folder in "Local Folders" (that way Thunderbird "sees" them) , and then move the messages to the IMAP account. I'd use the ImportExportTools NG add-on as tools -> import seems designed for importing profiles, not deleted accounts.
Dirki
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Re: Pop account removed: where are its e-mails?

Post by Dirki »

Simplest way would be to import the folders into a child folder in "Local Folders" (that way Thunderbird "sees" them) , and then move the messages to the IMAP account.
I tried to import a single folder only, where the mails are stored in of one of the removed accounts, this was shown

https://i.imgur.com/r0Wxvpm.png

I then imported the entire profil, so it imported everything into the Local Folders. How can I import to a special folder?

It, importing, obviously works only with entire accounts.

So this does not work, trying it it looks good and is easily done, but I do not know if it is really OK(?):
Or might it be possible to just start the backed up Thunderbird (with that account still being existing) and drag the e-mails from the Inbox, etc.
https://i.imgur.com/bUnjsEE.png
to a folder in Win (I would name Inbox, Sent, etc.)?
I'd use the ImportExportTools NG add-on as tools -> import seems designed for importing profiles, not deleted accounts.
How can I import the e-mails of a special folder with ImportExportTools NG? Can only find the option for entire profiles.
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tanstaafl
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Re: Pop account removed: where are its e-mails?

Post by tanstaafl »

You are using the built-in Tools -> Import which I don't think knows how to import just a single deleted account from a multiple account profile. Its really meant for importing a entire profile. That's why I suggested you install the ImportExportTools NG add-on. It lets you specify specific folders to import. It appears to work on my 102.5.0 system.

Check that you're selecting Tools -> ImportExportTools NG (which is at the bottom of the Tools menu on my system) and NOT Tools -> Import (which is just above Tools -> Export on my system)
Dirki
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Re: Pop account removed: where are its e-mails?

Post by Dirki »

Yes, yes, I did, but I cannot find an option there to just import the e-mails from a single folder.
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tanstaafl
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Re: Pop account removed: where are its e-mails?

Post by tanstaafl »

"import mbox file" imports the messages for a single folder . A mbox file has all of the messages for a corresponding folder. For example if you import the "inbox." mbox file you will import all of the messages in the inbox folder.
Dirki
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Re: Pop account removed: where are its e-mails?

Post by Dirki »

Ah, so that is irritating. I thought the entire folder had to be imported (what obviously is the case), but it only is referred to a single file.

May be an easy way to get those messages (of a delteted account) back into Thunderbird, is just to create a new acctount (not for downloading, sending messages). That seems to work very good here. Or is there a drawback?
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