How Do I Get Archives and Outlook Folders to Show?

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zlaer
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Re: How Do I Get Archives and Outlook Folders to Show?

Post by zlaer »

tanstaafl wrote: I looked again at the 4 screen shots and don't notice any differences between them other than the Archives folder, a big red arrow pointing to it and slightly different new mail counts. I didn't see the grey [Gmail] child folder for example. I am confused why your Sent Mail folder appears to have child folders (due to the > icon) but it appears to be that way in every screen shot.
No offense but youre confusing yourself. I'll reiterate the steps again I took to get to where the mail group looks now.

First, before I made any changes, the mail group included all the mail folders including [Gmail] folders. Look at the screen shot below:

Image

To rearrange the mail group, I went to: account server settings > advanced > and typed in [Gmail] into the IMAP server directory. After that the mail group looked like this:

Image

Now youre asking, how did I get the Archives folder? I archived one mail from inbox. All is good except that the Archives folder DOES NOT have any of my old archives from before I made all these changes. The only way I can get my old archives back is by deleting '[Gmail]' from the IMAP server directory in the account settings. Now since I dont want that, again, how do I get my old archived mail into this newly created Archives folder???

I NEVER used webmail and dont care what it is. The best way for you to understand what I'm saying is if you do the same steps I made on your TB. Then you'll see exactly what I mean. Otherwise I'll have to create a new thread since this thread. Looking forward to your next reply.
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tanstaafl
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Re: How Do I Get Archives and Outlook Folders to Show?

Post by tanstaafl »

You never posted that image (the one showing the [Gmail] folders) before. All of your prior screen shots had Sent Mail at the root. In this one, its moved to the normal location (as a child of [Gmail]).

You might have heard of the expression "I'm from Missouri and you'll have to show me". If somebody tells me something that is the opposite of what I've seen (or think I know) I need to ask questions to figure out whats going on. I am unfortunately, very used to people looking for help frequently making mistakes, or not providing enough information or context to let somebody help them. Sometimes the discrepancy is because they've run into a bug that I wasn't aware of. Or I just don't know enough about the subject :)

"Otherwise I'll have to create a new thread since this thread is going in circles."
Don't. I'm saying that as a moderator. Our rules about cross-posting forbid that. As a minimum I'll lock the other thread.

I realize you're frustrated, but we are making progress now that you've shown me the screen shot with the [Gmail] folder. I am puzzled though why you get that with a empty server directory in the advanced settings and get a flattened folder hierarchy with a [Gmail] server directory in the advanced settings. That is the exact opposite of what I used to see using older versions of Thunderbird. Currently, setting [Gmail] has no effect in my profile.

Webmail refers to the web page used read and send email provided by your email provider. With Gmail you needed to go to that web page and select its settings in order to go to the "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" tab used to enable IMAP (unless things have changed recently).

I have two Gmail accounts, one IMAP and the other POP. I've made more than the required changes in the settings via webmail for the IMAP account, but don't think I did that for the POP account. Perhaps that has some effect. Let me delete and replace the POP account with a IMAP account, and see if I can duplicate what you describe. If not, I'll try signing up for yet another Gmail email address and use it in a new profile (start fresh).

"All is good except that the Archives folder DOES NOT have any of my old archives from before I made all these changes"

I understand how you got the new archives folder and why it has one archived test message. However, I still don't understand how you created the archives before and what folder were they in. Just tell me how you archived stuff before. I don't know if we are talking about lost data, a missing folder, the archives being in a unsubscribed folder (so you don't see it anymore) or ....

All that you've really said is "I had old archived mail before I made changes to TB showing the mail grouping the way I set it up now. " Does that mean you've lost the original Archives folder and when you re-created one you expected the archived messages to be in it?

Try unchecking "show only subscribed folders" in the advanced settings and restarting. That should show every folder that exists. See if you can spot a folder with the missing archived messages. If that doesn't help give Thunderbird a couple of minutes to update the global index and then do a global search for one of the archived messages.
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zlaer
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Re: How Do I Get Archives and Outlook Folders to Show?

Post by zlaer »

tanstaafl wrote:You never posted that image (the one showing the [Gmail] folders) before. All of your prior screen shots had Sent Mail at the root..
Youre right I didn’t and I should have.
tanstaafl wrote:Webmail refers to the web page used read and send email provided by your email provider. With Gmail you needed to go to that web page and select its settings
Heres a screen shot of my settings in gmail:

Image
tanstaafl wrote:I still don't understand how you created the archives before and what folder were they in. Just tell me how you archived stuff before. I don't know if we are talking about lost data, a missing folder, the archives being in a unsubscribed folder (so you don't see it anymore) or ....
No offense but your question doesn’t make sense. Archived mail is always created when archived and an archive folder is always created where all archived mail goes to. Before I modified my mail grouping I had old archived mail in the Archive folder.

I VERY strongly suggest that you recreate the same steps I took i creating my mail grouping. Then archive a test email. When you see the Archive folder created this way, check if your old archives reappear in it.
tanstaafl wrote:Does that mean you've lost the original Archives folder and when you re-created one you expected the archived messages to be in it?
“Lost” is not the correct term since my old archived mail can still be recovered by undoing the way I modified the mail grouping. When I created the new Archives folder I expected my old archive mail to reappear there no different than having all my other mail in my folders reappear.
tanstaafl wrote:Try unchecking "show only subscribed folders" in the advanced settings and restarting. That should show every folder that exists. See if you can spot a folder with the missing archived messages. If that doesn't help give Thunderbird a couple of minutes to update the global index and then do a global search for one of the archived messages.
It doesn’t work. My old archive mail doesn’t reappear in the Archives folder.

And when you say, “See if you can spot a folder with the missing archived messages,” what folders are you referring to? All the folders that you see from the pic are all the folders I have.

I came across a user who posted this solution. But I want to see what you think of it:

“Open your Mozilla Thunderbird profile directory.
Go to the Mail folder. Drag and drop the archived folder file (Archive, for example) from its remote location to the Local Folders folder.
Make sure you do not overwrite existing files. If a file with the same name already exists under Local Folders, rename the archived folder file before copying.
Open Mozilla Thunderbird.
The archived folder should appear under Local Folders in the folder list.”
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tanstaafl
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Re: How Do I Get Archives and Outlook Folders to Show?

Post by tanstaafl »

That solution implies the missing messages were hidden in the archives folder, but were not visible. The best case scenario would be that they were deleted but hidden from view because "when I delete a message" was not set to "just mark it as deleted". In that case you would not see them using either webmail or Thunderbird. Try setting "when I delete a message" to "just mark it as deleted". If you're lucky you will see the missing messages with a line drawn through them (because they're deleted). Delete them again, to undelete them. Afterwards you can safely go back to your original setting for "when I delete a message".

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Deleting_mess ... P_accounts has some background.

If that doesn't help try dragging the folder to Local Folders and see if you can see them (even though their contents would be displayed in a very user unfriendly way) using a text editor to open the mbox file (the file named after the folder, with no file extension) in Local Folders. If you can see any evidence of those deleted messages in that mbox file see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Undelete_a_message for how to undelete them.

How long ago did you lose your old archived messages? Couple of days?

"“Lost” is not the correct term since my old archived mail can still be recovered by undoing the way I modified the mail grouping. When I created the new Archives folder I expected my old archive mail to reappear there no different than having all my other mail in my folders reappear. "

So you never deleted the old archive folder, it was misplaced (lost) as a side effect of changing the grouping?

If you can recover your old archived mail by undoing the grouping then I suggest you copy the contents of that folder to a folder in "Local Folders". Then you can reverse the grouping and try copying the archived messages from Local Folders to the archives folder in your IMAP account.

Looking at the screen shot of your webmail labels you appear to have two separate archives folders - one at the root and one in [Gmail]. Neither one has the old archived messages? If none of this helps I suggest you search "All Mail" using webmail for any trace of the old archive messages.

I'll experiment with my Gmail account sometime Sunday.
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tanstaafl
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Re: How Do I Get Archives and Outlook Folders to Show?

Post by tanstaafl »

https://support.google.com/mail/forum/A ... JGIA?hl=en is the most recent thread on the gmail community forum that recommends against setting the IMAP server directory since it may only show sub-folders of the defined folder, for the email client. Googles help instructions for Gmail also don't mention setting [Gmail]

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1322068
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=511331

I replaced the Gmail POP account with a Gmail IMAP account after making certain the settings for labels etc. were default. [Gmail] as the IMAP server directory did nothing for several restarts. I created a empty Archives folder in the root. At one time when I tried to select the Archives folder I got an error message (that was in a popup, but not in the error console) about [Gmail].

After restarting Thunderbird about a dozen more times the Archives folder in the root disappeared and the folder tree became flat (no [Gmail] child folder). The list of possible folders to subscribe to does not show Archives (even after refreshing the list). The accounts local directory has a archives.msf file. There is no "archives." mbox file because I had disabled synchronization for that account.

Logging into Gmail webmail with a browser I see the archives label and it has the fours messages it should have. They are also in the all mail label.

I subscribed to All Mail in Thunderbird. It did not show up in the folder pane until I restarted twice. It shows the same messages as All Mail in webmail. I tried to create a new Archives folder in the root but it would only let me create it as a child folder of the inbox. I copied the four messages to the Archives folder and was able to read them. I dragged the Archives folder to the root and it became empty. I copied the 4 messages again and it briefly claimed there were 8 messages in the folder but would not list any. The mouse cursor would not stop twirling. I restarted again, copied the same 4 messages from all mail to archives again and now everything is fine for the moment.

Summary:
I was able to reproduce your problem. I recovered the missing archive messages from "all mail" and was able to copy them to archives (at the root) but ran into repeated problems that required many restarts of Thunderbird. I don't recommend using [Gmail] as the IMAP server directory as it seems to have bad side effects, but it might work okay for you.
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zlaer
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Re: How Do I Get Archives and Outlook Folders to Show?

Post by zlaer »

tanstaafl wrote:
If that doesn't help try dragging the folder to Local Folders and see if you can see them (even though their contents would be displayed in a very user unfriendly way) using a text editor to open the mbox file (the file named after the folder, with no file extension) in Local Folders. If you can see any evidence of those deleted messages in that mbox file see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Undelete_a_message for how to undelete them.
.
Hey tanstaafl,

I think I got it!

We all know that I entered '[Gmail]' in 'IMAP server directory' in 'account settings.' Well, 1st I deleted '[Gmail]' from the IMAP server directory in account settings. Then I archived a test email which created the Archives folder, a subfolder of the Inbox. Then when the [Gmail] folders (or group) were re-created (Drafts, Archives, Sent, Spam), I right clicked and moved all the old archived mail from the Archive folder in this [Gmail] group to the Archives in the [Gmail] account.. if that makles sense. I know it sounds confusing. But I attached a pic showing how I did this. Check it out.

If you go by right clicking it goes like this: move mail from Archive folder under [Gmail] in the left pane > my account > [Gmail] > Archives.

By doing this I got all my old archive mail back. I'm in heaven now.

Image


Btw, I'm no expert in TB like you are. Could you tell me what 'Local' folders is? Are these mail folders represented on the left pane as the main folders on top? Or are they subfolders of [Gmail] folders located below them?
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tanstaafl
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Re: How Do I Get Archives and Outlook Folders to Show?

Post by tanstaafl »

See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Local_Folders

It is a "special" account that doesn't have any instructions for how to communicate with a mail server. It is useful to let you safely store copies of messages locally if you have IMAP accounts (were they can't be deleted due to syncing), provides a place for Thunderbird to queue unsent messages, and can be used to provide a optional global inbox for POP accounts (which hides the POP accounts folders in the folder pane and has them use "Local Folders" instead).

The content menu displayed by "Move to" in your last screen shot appears to list 3 normal accounts plus "Local Folders". Note how Local Folders uses a different icon that doesn't look like a envelope with a lock. But I don't see any sign of "Local Folders" in the folder pane to the left. Its not clear to me why unless you used something like the hide local folders add-on. If you had deleted the account in prefs.js it would not have shown up in the context menu.
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zlaer
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Re: How Do I Get Archives and Outlook Folders to Show?

Post by zlaer »

tanstaafl wrote:See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Local_Folders

It is a "special" account that doesn't have any instructions for how to communicate with a mail server. It is useful to let you safely store copies of messages locally if you have IMAP accounts (were they can't be deleted due to syncing).

The content menu displayed by "Move to" in your last screen shot appears to list 3 normal accounts plus "Local Folders". Note how Local Folders uses a different icon that doesn't look like a envelope with a lock. But I don't see any sign of "Local Folders" in the folder pane to the left. Its not clear to me why unless you used something like the hide local folders add-on. If you had deleted the account in prefs.js it would not have shown up in the context menu.
Oh I'm beginning to understand. Would any folders that are subfolders of [Gmail] be considered Local Folders? Just want to be precise in how they look for future reference.

Yes I do have 'hide local folders' addon active which explains why you dont see them on the left pane.

*** Forgot to mention the last step from my previous post to you. As a last step I typed in [Gmail] in the 'IMAP server directory' to remove [Gmail] and its subfolders. Thought you'd like to know that in case you were wondering.

.
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tanstaafl
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Re: How Do I Get Archives and Outlook Folders to Show?

Post by tanstaafl »

"Would any folders that are subfolders of [Gmail] be considered Local Folders?"

No. They are in different accounts. "Local Folders" refers to the name of an account, not whether or not a folder is a offline folder stored on your PC. Since mbox files stored on your hard disk, there is a convention to capitalize and sometimes use double quotes for "Local Folders" to make it clear its referring to a special account and not a folder.

Whether or not any subfolders of [Gmail] have offline folders (aka local folders) depends upon the synchronization & storage settings.

The same type of confusion can occur with directory and folder. The context is clearer if use folder to refer just to mail folders, and directory to refer to hierarchical file structures on the hard disk.
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zlaer
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Re: How Do I Get Archives and Outlook Folders to Show?

Post by zlaer »

tanstaafl wrote:"Would any folders that are subfolders of [Gmail] be considered Local Folders?"

No. They are in different accounts. "Local Folders" refers to the name of an account, not whether or not a folder is a offline folder stored on your PC. Since mbox files stored on your hard disk, there is a convention to capitalize and sometimes use double quotes for "Local Folders" to make it clear its referring to a special account and not a folder.

Whether or not any subfolders of [Gmail] have offline folders (aka local folders) depends upon the synchronization & storage settings.

The same type of confusion can occur with directory and folder. The context is clearer if use folder to refer just to mail folders, and directory to refer to hierarchical file structures on the hard disk.

A bit confusing it seems. But I'm getting there.

Wanted to ask you about backing up and restoring passwords. I had backed up key4.db and logins.json from my profile because I had to reinstall ff. After I reinstalled it, I pasted these files in the newly created profile. But my passwords dont show up. Any clues or am I doing something wrong?

.
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tanstaafl
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Re: How Do I Get Archives and Outlook Folders to Show?

Post by tanstaafl »

"Wanted to ask you about backing up and restoring passwords. I had backed up key4.db and logins.json from my profile because I had to reinstall ff. After I reinstalled it, I pasted these files in the newly created profile. But my passwords dont show up"

I think you meant Thunderbird, not ff. Its safest to consider logins.json, cert9.db, key4.db, and pkcs11.txt as a set of files that must be replaced if you replace any of them. If this doesn't help please create a new thread (it will be easier to get help from more people that way).

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Files_and_fol ... hunderbird
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zlaer
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Re: How Do I Get Archives and Outlook Folders to Show?

Post by zlaer »

tanstaafl wrote:"Wanted to ask you about backing up and restoring passwords. I had backed up key4.db and logins.json from my profile because I had to reinstall ff. After I reinstalled it, I pasted these files in the newly created profile. But my passwords dont show up"

I think you meant Thunderbird, not ff. Its safest to consider logins.json, cert9.db, key4.db, and pkcs11.txt as a set of files that must be replaced if you replace any of them. If this doesn't help please create a new thread (it will be easier to get help from more people that way).

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Files_and_fol ... hunderbird

No actually I meant ff not tb.

Here my new thread. Hope you can comment:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... &t=3044612
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