THUNDERBIRD DELETED ALL MY EMAILS!!! WTH??

[FUUBAR]

WHY does this happen?? All i did was start IMAP and boom all gone, thousands of emails! What setting is this, why is it set to do this? I lost several Yahoo folders - THOUSANDS OF ALL GONE!

What's going on. i never wanted my emails deleted on Yahoo, are they downloaded and stored somewhere that i just don't see them?

[DanRaisch]

You'll have to provide more information if you want anyone to help you here.

Have you logged onto the account using a browser to determine if the messages are still on the Yahoo server?
Was there any error message displayed in Thunderbird when you started it up?
Was this an account you have been using for sometime with Thunderbird or a new account just set up in Thunderbird?

[FUUBAR]

Okay, Five things, I just installed and started using TB, I created a series of folders in my TB account below where it says "Local Folders" (because it did not create them as expected, that's #1, i expect to duplicate the folders of Yahoo emails on my local disk, TB is completely useless if that cannot be done automatically), then i opened a Yahoo folder in TB, i highlighted every email it showed me, and i dragged them into the local folder i created mentioned above. I soon found out this fails almost every time i tried to do it (some error happens part way through, that's #2, it's very unreliable), i get some pop-up and it disappears before i can read it (where's the setting for that timing?, that's #3), so i stopped doing that bc it fails for bigger folders, and yes it "moved" rather than "copied" as expected! That's #4. WHILE i was getting-no-where-fast doing that, TB decided to "read" all the other 10s of thousands of emails i have, it appears that when it got done doing that in a Yahoo folder it decided to delete them completely (or did it??? They are gone from Yahoo, that is certain, they're not in the Trash afaik, so are they in the TB file system? Can i recover them? That's #5).

[DanRaisch]

And did you set up the account in Thunderbird as a POP or IMAP type account? Check that under menu path Tools->Account Settings->Server Settings->Server Type.

If IMAP, moving the messages from the server would, of course. delete them from the server. The action should have bee Copy to ensure that the messages would still be available on the server if the first action failed.

[FUUBAR]

Yes, IMAP is default, so it setup IMAP for me, i just installed TB and typed in one of my email addresses, BIG mistake!

You might have missed what i'm saying, TB deleted all the emails, 1000s, in my Yahoo email folder, right after reading them, i can't find them anywhere! It was a big folder reduced to zero, i'm scarred to let TB run!!!

The only emails it did not delete are the few i managed to "copy" (drag & move) into folders on my harddisk. I had to exit TB from doing any further deleting of my emails while it runs.

So the Qs are: what settings are doing this, and how do i stop it from doing this, then how do i control TB to actually do what i want, which is to selectively copy (meaning i have my emails both on Yahoo and stored on my harddrive, in a format where i can read them anytime offline) my Yahoo folders onto my harddisk?

[colehill]

You might have missed what i'm saying, TB deleted all the emails, 1000s, in my Yahoo email folder, right after reading them, i can't find them anywhere! It was a big folder reduced to zero, i'm scarred to let TB run!!!

You will have to be quick as they only back them up for 48 hours, but I have done this Yahoo restore for a client once before - and it worked:

http://yhoo.it/12TOB6v

Just to be on the safe side though, please make sure that you are subscribed to the folders that you created on Yahoo and that your messages aren't sitting on the Yahoo server and you aren't "looking at them" - check via the Yahoo web interface that it's not just TB that isn't seeing them.

KD

[makaiguy]

Also make sure your TBird isn't set to only view unread messages (View | Messages | (•) All).

[tanstaafl]

IMAP accounts don't delete messages as part of fetching the message content like POP accounts do (if it weren't for "leave on server" being set). IMAP accounts are designed to let you read messages while they are still stored in folders on the mail server. After you read the message it hasn't moved. Thunderbird has added an optional feature where it may download a COPY to a offline folder, this is managed by tools -> account settings -> yahoo -> synchronization & storage. You need to switch to working offline (file -> offline -> work offline) to see the contents of a offline folder rather than its corresponding remote folder on the mail server.

What is tools -> account settings -> yahoo -> server settings -> "when I delete a message" set to?

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Disappearing_mail is a long checklist but has almost every possible way for a message to disappear. Have you logged into webmail using a browser and verified the messages are gone from there? While you go through that checklist make certain that nothing compacts your folders.

[FUUBAR]

Oh, yes, i checked Yahoo!, the folder is completely empty sad to say, and it has been more than a few days, that's an interesting link, but i'm still asking where the manual is for this software, i want to read on all the settings so i can guess what happened, is it really possible that Mozilla did not write a manual?? I really do not think IMAP would delete emails, but TB did somehow, i imagine it was set to do so "somehow". Once that gets fix or set right, then i have to figure out how to get it to successfully download all the emails i want to my PC so i can forget about all my Yahoo! email accounts.

[tanstaafl]

Mozilla didn't write a manual. The closest thing to one is the FLOSS manual on Thunderbird at http://en.flossmanuals.net/Thunderbird

I am skeptical that it was due to it being an IMAP account (rather than a POP account). I'd assume it was due to either message aging settings, message filters etc.

[FUUBAR]

Mozilla did not make a manual??! WTH?!

What are message aging? and message filters? where can all the settings be explained? That FLOSS location is pretty skimpy though...

Gawd! It's like everyone is trying to explain something Mozilla should have explained themselves!!

[damarc]

This is an interesting thread because I've just recently posted on why two downloads were treated differently. I have a googlemail account which has been twice downloaded to TB, the first time through IMAP and the second time through POP. The first time I got the lot downloaded, but the second time I only got 250 through POP but ALL my emails still reside on my googlemail web account. With regards to the Sky email, the first client being googlemail when I downloaded all 8000 emails through IMAP and the second time through POP, these are also still residing on my now Yahoo web account as Sky transferred its allegience from googlemail to Yahoo.

[colehill]

What are ... and message filters? where can all the settings be explained?

I didn't find that they needed any explanation, they are what other mail clients have referred to as "Mail Rules" and are particularly useful for filing your emails into client or subject folders depending on who they are from or what their content is - I have 66 of them defined for my main (Business) mail account - and that's still quite a lot short of how many I had on the CRM I was using before I started using T'Bird.

The subject is documented in the on-line help here: http://mzl.la/11BZqHI

Of course the usual rule applies that 90% of the users use 10% of the features - I would add the codicil that, of the 10% who are endeavouring to use filters, most of them will work it out for themselves from the nicely intuitive interface and rich feature set.

Almost nobody produces manuals these days - a good help file is useful, but the peer support offered here is invaluable.

KD

[tanstaafl]

Both MozillaZine (us) and SuMoMo (Mozilla's Thunderbird KB web site) have Knowledge Base articles on Thunderbird. The biggest difference is that ours are more technical and we let anybody (who has a KB account) edit anything while they require all edits to be approved. You can find our KB articles using either the Knowledge Base link or the search field to the right ===>

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Message_Filters
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Message_aging

Some other KB articles you might find useful:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Getting_start ... hunderbird
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keep_it_working_-_Thunderbird
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Common_miscon ... hunderbird

One common problem with both web sites is the KB articles get outdated.

[DanRaisch]

I can't recall the last software I purchased that had a paper manual. Most don't even come with a manual on disk these days. User guides for recent hardware purchases (a router) had to be downloaded from the manufacturer's web site.