Recover email account

[luisgo007]

Dear All

I removed an email account of Thunderbird. The account is not anymore active. But I want to have access to the old emails. I went to "Appdata\Roaming\Thunderbird\.....\ImapMail\ ......etc" and found that the emails files are still there. How I can reativate the email account in thunderbird and access the old emails even that I can not login in the account because it is not anymore active

Thanks

Luis Gonçalves

[DanRaisch]

found that the emails files are still there.

What files were present that suggest that the message data is still present?

[luisgo007]

"C:\Users\lgoncalves\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxx.default\ImapMail\imap.inesctec.pt.msf"
"C:\Users\lgoncalves\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxx.default\ImapMail\imap.inesctec.pt\Archives.msf"
"C:\Users\lgoncalves\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxx.default\ImapMail\imap.inesctec.pt\Drafts.msf"
"C:\Users\lgoncalves\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxx.default\ImapMail\imap.inesctec.pt\Drafts-1"
"C:\Users\lgoncalves\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxx.default\ImapMail\imap.inesctec.pt\Drafts-1.msf"
"C:\Users\lgoncalves\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxx.default\ImapMail\imap.inesctec.pt\INBOX"
"C:\Users\lgoncalves\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxx.default\ImapMail\imap.inesctec.pt\INBOX.msf"
"C:\Users\lgoncalves\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxx.default\ImapMail\imap.inesctec.pt\Junk.msf"
"C:\Users\lgoncalves\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxx.default\ImapMail\imap.inesctec.pt\msgFilterRules.dat"
"C:\Users\lgoncalves\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxx.default\ImapMail\imap.inesctec.pt\Sent.msf"
"C:\Users\lgoncalves\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxx.default\ImapMail\imap.inesctec.pt\Sent-1"
"C:\Users\lgoncalves\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxx.default\ImapMail\imap.inesctec.pt\Sent-1.msf"
"C:\Users\lgoncalves\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxx.default\ImapMail\imap.inesctec.pt\Templates.msf"
"C:\Users\lgoncalves\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxx.default\ImapMail\imap.inesctec.pt\Trash"
"C:\Users\lgoncalves\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxx.default\ImapMail\imap.inesctec.pt\Trash.msf"

[DanRaisch]

1) The files with the extension .msf do not contain full message data but only summary data to improve performance and store user choices like sort order, etc.

2) The files with no filename extension (such as INBOX and Drafts-1) are message files.

3) Close Thunderbird. Rename each of those by adding "Old" to the start of the name (i.e. OldINBOX). Then copy those files into C:\Users\lgoncalves\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxx.default\Mail\Local Folders. Launch Thunderbird and you should find folders with the same names (i.e. OldINBOX, etc.) and those folder should contain messages from the old account. Actions on those messages (deletions or the like) will not have any effect on your other accounts or anything on the IMAP servers.

[tanstaafl]

See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Importing_folders for how to import the files containing your messages using the ImportExportTools add-on. If you import them using the add-on it will preserve the folder hierarchy, and not require any renaming.