Can't Drag and Drop Folders

User Help for Mozilla Thunderbird
Post Reply
User avatar
Clueless in Seattle
Posts: 503
Joined: March 27th, 2006, 11:58 am
Location: duh!

Can't Drag and Drop Folders

Post by Clueless in Seattle »

I've been trying to tidy up my email accounts and have come across a couple of mail folders that refuse to be dragged and dropped into a third folder. They just won't budge when I click on them and try to drag them into another folder.

Any ideas on how to correct this?
_____________
Will in Seattle
a.k.a. "Clueless"
Guest
Guest

Re: Can't Drag and Drop Folders

Post by Guest »

did you Compact the affected folders? before combining

what would be the total Size of the combined folders, if they had combined successfully?
User avatar
Daifne
Moderator
Posts: 123071
Joined: July 31st, 2005, 9:17 pm
Location: Where the Waters Meet, Wisconsin

Re: Can't Drag and Drop Folders

Post by Daifne »

What are these folders named?
Is your account POP3 or IMAP?
User avatar
Clueless in Seattle
Posts: 503
Joined: March 27th, 2006, 11:58 am
Location: duh!

Re: Can't Drag and Drop Folders

Post by Clueless in Seattle »

Hi DAifne!

I managed to "trick" TB by creating new folders with different names, moving the messages from the old folders to the new folders, and then deleting the old folders.

But now in a different account under Local Folders, I've got five recalcitrant folders that I'm unable to delete.

They are named:

_Sleepless_in_Seattle_INBOX
EMAIL GROUPS
SeattleCFS_YahooGroup
SeattleCFS Subscription Renewals 2006
Pending Confirmation

They are all empty folders (I've moved all the messages to new folders)

These are my last remaining self-created folders under Local Folders.

My email accounts are all POP3

I'm running TB version 2.0.0.24 under Win2K

In reply to Guest: Yes, I emptied the trash and compacted folders frequently while reorganizing my mail folders, usually after each operation.

P.S. I'm also having problems with my Message Filters disappearing. I'll post that problem as a separate thread, but am mentioning it here just in case it might provide you with any clues as to what is going on.

P.P.S. I've repeatedly closed TB, deleted all tmprules.dat files per instructions I found at

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Filters_(Thunderbird)
_____________
Will in Seattle
a.k.a. "Clueless"
User avatar
Daifne
Moderator
Posts: 123071
Joined: July 31st, 2005, 9:17 pm
Location: Where the Waters Meet, Wisconsin

Re: Can't Drag and Drop Folders

Post by Daifne »

Hi Will,

OK. Close Thunderbird and navigate to your profile folder. Since you say that these are in Local Folders, go into that folder Under Mail. Find the files for those folders and delete them. You want to delete both the files with no extensions and the .msf files. If there are any .sbd folders by those names, delete them as well. If they are subfolders of another folder, you may need to look for them in that parent folder's .sbd folder. That should clear them.
User avatar
Clueless in Seattle
Posts: 503
Joined: March 27th, 2006, 11:58 am
Location: duh!

Re: Can't Drag and Drop Folders

Post by Clueless in Seattle »

Hi again, Daifne!

I found those folders by using Win2Ks Start>Run>%APPDATA%\Thunderbird\Profiles\

Then I worked my way down the tree following these branches:

Local Folders
_Sleepless_in_Seattle_INBOX.sbd
EMAIL GROUPS.sbd
SeattleCFS_YahooGroup.sbd
SeattleCFS Subscription Renewals 2006.sbd

I opened the folder named SeattleCFS Subscription Renewals 2006.sbd but was unable to delete the files it contained:

Dead Addresses.msf
Pending Confirmation.
Pending Confirmation.msf

At that point I found what appears to be an inconsistency. I looked at the Property
Sheets for those last two folders and found that they both display identical folder names in their white fields, but different folder names in the blue bars at the top of the Property Sheets.

The offender seems to be the folder SeattleCFS Subscription Renewals 2006.sbd whose Property Sheet displays SeattleCFS_YahooGroup.sbd in the white field.

I tried changing the name in the white field to match the blue bar, and then reopened it. But when I re-opened the folder, I was still unable to delete those pesky three files.

Any ideas on where to go from here?
_____________
Will in Seattle
a.k.a. "Clueless"
User avatar
Daifne
Moderator
Posts: 123071
Joined: July 31st, 2005, 9:17 pm
Location: Where the Waters Meet, Wisconsin

Re: Can't Drag and Drop Folders

Post by Daifne »

In the properties, are they possibly marked Read Only?
User avatar
Clueless in Seattle
Posts: 503
Joined: March 27th, 2006, 11:58 am
Location: duh!

Re: Can't Drag and Drop Folders

Post by Clueless in Seattle »

No, none of the folders in that tree aret marked Read Only.

But, this time I checked the properties of the stubborn files in last folder at the end of the last branch:

Dead Addresses.msf
Pending Confirmation
Pending Confirmation.msf

And when I tried to look at the Property Sheets for those three folders, I got the same error message for each one:

"The properties for this item are not available"

(The blue bar at the top of these error messages is labeled "Desktop").

Could these error messages be telling me that these files no longer exist, even though Thunderbird still "thinks" they do?
_____________
Will in Seattle
a.k.a. "Clueless"
User avatar
Daifne
Moderator
Posts: 123071
Joined: July 31st, 2005, 9:17 pm
Location: Where the Waters Meet, Wisconsin

Re: Can't Drag and Drop Folders

Post by Daifne »

It sounds like you are having some file issues in Windows. I can see that you're using a pretty old OS, is that 2000 or ME? I can't remember which one 5.0 was. Have you tried running chkdsk?
User avatar
Clueless in Seattle
Posts: 503
Joined: March 27th, 2006, 11:58 am
Location: duh!

Re: Can't Drag and Drop Folders

Post by Clueless in Seattle »

It's Win2K.

Thanks for the suggestion about CHKDSK!

I'll give that a shot.
_____________
Will in Seattle
a.k.a. "Clueless"
User avatar
Daifne
Moderator
Posts: 123071
Joined: July 31st, 2005, 9:17 pm
Location: Where the Waters Meet, Wisconsin

Re: Can't Drag and Drop Folders

Post by Daifne »

Good luck.
User avatar
Clueless in Seattle
Posts: 503
Joined: March 27th, 2006, 11:58 am
Location: duh!

Re: Can't Drag and Drop Folders

Post by Clueless in Seattle »

Thanks (again!) Daifne!

CHKDSK seems to have done the trick!

All the phantom folders are now gone (apparently for good).

And (fingers crossed) my newly created Message Filters have so far not vanished on me in the last 48 hours.

You made my day! Heck, you made my whole week!
_____________
Will in Seattle
a.k.a. "Clueless"
User avatar
Daifne
Moderator
Posts: 123071
Joined: July 31st, 2005, 9:17 pm
Location: Where the Waters Meet, Wisconsin

Re: Can't Drag and Drop Folders

Post by Daifne »

You're very welcome, Will. :-)
Post Reply