Thunderbird-Hilfeforum

I tried posting a thread but unfortunately I didn't got any traction. Maybe I've explained myself in a not so clear way? I'm going to try again, hoping to getting better luck this time around. Here it goes.

Big profile backup is out of control when restored. I'm on OSX.

Backup is a normal zip file of the profile folder, created on the same machine.

I know in theory, I should just create a new profile, quit TB, and then replace the contents of the newly created profile with my backup's contents. Next time I start it up, I should see my profiles' content.

However, that doesn't happen. And this is what I've seen after several dozen (?) times attempting it:

[list] [*] the first time starting after the restore, it takes a while to start. Then I'm shown a series INBOXes named with '-n' at the end, for an arbitrary (?) number of n. Such as 'INBOX', 'INBOX-1', ..., 'INBOX-25', some 3 to 5, others 40 or 50.

The last, according to this numbering, appears to be the one that contains the actual Inbox with messages. This happens in almost all accounts in the profile (about two thirds). I can also see several 'INBOX-n.msf' files (1kb) in the filesystem, with one corresponding final 'INBOX-n' file. This, as one could guess at this point, was not part of the original backup.

[*] after restarting TB, it takes even longer, and I lose access to all other folders. Everything below the account name disappears, except for the 'INBOX' that remains listed as a folder in the left pane, and when clicked on, shows no messages, none. For every account.

[*] every subsequent restart is then very quick, and I don't get access to the folders anymore. Even the maimed access the first time around seems now to be gone. There are only the empty INBOX folders, again and again./list

Profile folder size goes from ~24GB to ~16GB throughout this, though in TB's folder pane, it looks as empty as it could be.

I've repeated this dozens of times, with two different profiles which lead to the same result.

I might have tried a restore once on Windows machine to test it out, a long time ago, which I think went smoothly. So I can't vouch for it now, but I'd guess the problem is in OSX. Which is a problem, because it's what I'm using.

Am I doing something wrong? Does it have anything to do with permissions? What can I do to get this restore working? Anyone experienced the same on OSX?

I feel silly going through the trouble of backing up weekly, don't feel safe at all by failing to restore these backups. When I need the backup, I don't think I'm going to have one. I've had a few scares, and one of these days, it's bound to happen.

Below are the pictures when I restore this backup in OSX, in the first run it shows a corrupted folder structure, and from then on I have no access to the emails anymore.

Would appreciate any help with this long running issue.

Here's the pictures of the situation:

[b]First Run:/b

[img]https://preview.redd.it/jqs03d7fdcna1.png?width=324&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=ddc6a11b9da6d0413b8a81921bb3e618879b5f73/img

[b]Second Run:/b

[img]https://preview.redd.it/mvqtvi5hdcna1.png?width=369&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=f44319dd7f06fa25df4a5cb3d931e103f59b2eeb/img

1) In my internet search about what are .mozmsgs folders, I read that they are related to a Windows search function. However I am no longer using Windows, but a Mac. Does that mean they are redundant and I could delete them?

Background: I am moving my Thunderbird profile from the iMac to my Macbook when traveling. And afterwards I am moving it back. I seem to have lost mails from earlier years but just found them on the Macbook. For some reason the synchronization did not transfer all the subfolders. The strange thing is that the iMac (which did not show the older mail folders) has lots of .mozmsgs folders, while the Macbook (which showed the older mails) does not. I am using only POP never IMAP.

2) I organize my mail folders in yearly folders. After some years, when I am less likely to looking things up, I move the year folders into an archive folder. I do this inside of Thunderbird. Now I just noticed that I have empty .sbd and .mozmsgs folders in the original location (zero bites). Again I am wondering if these folders are redundant and could be deleted?

Thanks!

Hello wise people of the internet,

I've just installed Thunderbird, which happily downloaded the last couple years worth of messages... and then stopped. I can't get it to pick up the rest, even though there's another fifteen years of email that I'd like to preserve on this computer. I tried repairing the folder: it flickers through the existing emails for a while, and maybe stretches the stop date another month or two back, but otherwise doesn't change anything.

I'd be very grateful for any suggestions! I'm truly just using this as a backup for my emails (I continue to read and send within the browser), so it's important to me to get it all here.

Thanks in advance!

I had several address books with selected contacts under my Personal Address Book so that I was able to select them for sending emails to selective groups. Unfortunately my system crashed and I had to reinstall my OP system including Thunderbird. When I upgraded to a new version of Thunderbird I was unable to migrate the contacts within those list to the new address books, unfortunately I don't remember which version caused the change except it was when they moved the address book icon to the left side of the screen. I had copied the respective sub address books to .csv files. How can I import the selected .csv files to a sub folder under my Personal Address Book? Also, how do I copy/paste individual or groups of contacts from one file to another?

Hi!

I recently got Thunderbird (TB) re-installed in my new PC.

In the re-installed TB, certain mail threads are sort of compressed, so I cannot click and open older specific emails, or did not find the right method to do it. Also, Archive or Remove are the only two buttons active. The drop-down thread with Save As (and other options) has disappeared.

Can I still click and open specific emails in a thread in TB? If so, how do I do it? Am I missing something?

Can I still find the Save As option, to save email threads (as backup) outside TB, in my PC? If so, how do I do it?

Why are only some threads compressed? It seems to happen randomly. For example, the thread most recently active was compressed, along with some other, older threads.

All threads I refer to as compressed has a branching-like symbol to the left of the subject line. This symbol never appeared in my old TB. In my old TB there was never a problem archiving a thread outside TB.

Many thanks in advance!

Best, Stefan Andersson

I use Protonmail, and after a year of on-and-off back and forth with them, I finally have the bridge working with Thunderbird.

At any rate, I have been trying to import my contacts from the Protonmail webmail to Thunderbird. There is an export tool on the webmail site, and that seems to go fine - it creates a .vcf file. If I open that document, it has all of my contacts there. Then I open Thunderbird and use the import tool - that appears to go fine, but after I hit "finish" and look in the contacts, there are no addresses. I have shut down and rebooted, closed Thunderbird and re-opened it, tried all of this several times, but nothing changes.

I searched on here for threads on this and found things from 2015 saying that a .vcf file is for individual addresses only, but I'm thinking that must have changed? It is the only export option.

Can anyone help? I have TB 102.8.0, and I am on Cinnamon - Kernel: 5.15.0-67-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.3.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 5.6.8 tk: GTK 3.24.33 wm: muffin dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 21.1 Vera base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy

Thank you.

I'm trying to migrate a 45 GB profile to a new computer the usual way: I have copied the profile folder, started Thunderbird Profile Manager, created a new profile assigning this folder as the profile folder. I'm working in offline mode. The old PC runs on Windows, the new on Debian Linux.

All of the email addresses show up, but NONE of the emails are displayed. The folders appear as empty. Interestingly enough, I can search among the emails though using Ctrl-K: upon entering a keyword, emails containing it are found and enlisted, however, I cannot read the full email: clicking on them leads to an error message saying email cannot be loaded since I'm working offline. Ctrl-Shift-K does not work.

I have tried the same process on a different PC running on Windows: here at least some of the emails are displayed, but not all of them, although I have followed exactly the same procedure as before, as described above.

I'm out of ideas. What could be the problem?

j'applique le mode d'emploi Phase 1 sur l'ancien PC phase 2 sur le nouveau PC mais arrivé à profiles je ne trouve plus roaming ni thunderbird alors impossible de continuer l'import

Help! I tried to follow the migration instructions in Thunderbird support, but it didn't work and now I can't find any of my folders or emails. I need someone to help me through reconstructing this. I have all the profiles and email information, saved, I hope, but I appear to be doing something wrong. I would really prefer to do this over the phone, if that's possible. Sydney

Hi!

I recently got a new PC, with Thunderbird (TB) re-installed. The address book in my old TB was not migrated to TB in my new PC.

Is there a way to import the address book to my new TB?

Many thanks in advance for all help!

Best, Stefan Andersson