Why is my folderpane organized differently from my partner's

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metal rabbit
Posts: 4
Joined: January 2nd, 2016, 9:34 pm

Why is my folderpane organized differently from my partner's

Post by metal rabbit »

After my husband died, I took over his computer, as our eBay business emails were all on his. I don't know how or why, but his Thunderbird folder pane was set up in a totally different way from mine, and in a way that's just counter-intuitive to me.

I got our (actually, my) own domains and attendant email addresses and added them to his already confusing Thunderbird, which has probably only compounded the problem.

Here's the way his Thunderbird folder pane is currently set up:

Inbox Drafts Sent Archives

Trash Outbox [nothing in here]

oldaddress1@isp.com

oldaddress2@isp.com

newaddress1@mydomain.com

newaddress2@mydomain.com

newaddress3@mydomain.com

newaddress4@mydomain.com

newaddress5@mydomain.com

Local Folders
  • an eBay inbox [this is something that he created, and most emails from oldaddress1 were sent into here]
    • [many subfolders in here with emails from oldaddress1, all of which are eBay related]
********************

But my computer, which also had multiple email addresses, wasn't set up like his at all. It looked like this:

oldaddress3@isp.com
  • Inbox
    Drafts
    Sent
    Trash
    [any other folders I created]
oldaddress4@isp.com
  • Inbox
    Drafts
    Sent
    Trash
    [any other folders I created]
The way my computer was set up made it much easier to organize business emails.

Now, when I create a subfolder, it's located as a child of the primary email address folder (located on the list just below Outbox). This is extraordinarily inconvenient.

I haven't been able to figure out a way to straighten his Thunderbird out. Does anyone have any advice?

Also, since only emails from oldaddress1 are going into the main Local Folders folder, does that mean when I backup Thunderbird, that's all I'm actually backing up? (I confess I don't really understand the whole Local Folders thing.)

Many thanks in advance.
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tanstaafl
Moderator
Posts: 49647
Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Why is my folderpane organized differently from my partn

Post by tanstaafl »

His computer appears to be using a unified inbox. That re-organizes the folder pane to group special folders together. It is set using "view -> folders -> unified". Try changing it to "view-> folders -> all", which is what I think you are using.

His Local Folders might be using a ebay POP account that was set to use a global inbox. That hides the accounts folders in the folder pane and has it use folders in "Local Folders" instead. See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Global_Inbox if you want to undo it.

"Local Folders" is a special type of account that stores messages in your profile (hard disk) just like POP accounts do. See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Local_Folders for more information about it.

While its possible to re-configure a account to store its messages outside of the profile, normally they are stored within the profile. So if you backup the profile it backs up the POP accounts and Local Folders account. IMAP accounts are different. They store messages in remote folders on the server, though they may have a local copy stored in a "offline folder" in the profile. That should get backed up if you back up the profile. The risk is that if you delete a message in a remote folder in a IMAP account it also deleted it in the corresponding offline folder. It's not a guaranteed backup, its just a mirror of whats on the server. If you delete a message on the server and then later on restore a backup, the message in the offline folder will get automatically deleted when the remote and offline folders are sync'd. You could import the contents of the offline folder into "Local Folders" per http://kb.mozillazine.org/Importing_folders to avoid that.

If you are working online you see the contents of the remote folder (for a IMAP account). If you are working offline -> file -> offline -> work offline) you see the contents of the offline folder instead.

If you're not sure if an account is POP or IMAP look at the server type in the account settings.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup
http://kb.mozillazine.org/IMAP_backup
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metal rabbit
Posts: 4
Joined: January 2nd, 2016, 9:34 pm

Re: Why is my folderpane organized differently from my partn

Post by metal rabbit »

Thank you so much! It was ultimately such a simple fix, and yet I spent a couple of hours looking for a solution before finally giving up and posting here.

I so appreciate your comprehensive answer!

All of our email addresses were set up as POP accounts, so, just to confirm, then they're all saved when I back up my profile?

If that's the case, it sounds as if I personally don't really have a need for Local Folders; is this true? And, finally, is there any benefit to having a Message Filter that moves emails there (as my husband had it set up), as opposed to just keeping subfolders such as "an eBay Inbox" under oldaddress1?

Again, thanks for all your help!
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