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Emails lost after repairing corrupt inbox

  • 2 replies
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  • Last reply by Matt

Benjamin Kok
Benjamin Kok
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I’ve been using Thunderbird for quite a few years now but recently out of the blue I noticed that all emails starting from 2000 to a few weeks ago show up blank when opened. After googling this issue I found someone who suggested I repair the inbox in Thunderbird (right click and repair), which I did. However now all those mails that first showed up blank are completely missing from my inbox. I know they’re still there because when I search for them Thunderbird can find them and even shows the first few sentences of the email. But when I attempt to open them they’re empty again.

It seems to be an indexing issue, which I’ve tried to resolve by removing the indexing file (to a different location just in case). Then starting up Thunderbird again to rebuild the file, sadly this did not resolve the issue.

Normally I would just re-sync these emails from online, however due to an issue with my mail provider these are no longer available there.

I know the emails are still there stored locally, but I can’t access them anymore.

Can anyone help?

My mail account uses POP

I’ve been using Thunderbird for quite a few years now but recently out of the blue I noticed that all emails starting from 2000 to a few weeks ago show up blank when opened. After googling this issue I found someone who suggested I repair the inbox in Thunderbird (right click and repair), which I did. However now all those mails that first showed up blank are completely missing from my inbox. I know they’re still there because when I search for them Thunderbird can find them and even shows the first few sentences of the email. But when I attempt to open them they’re empty again. It seems to be an indexing issue, which I’ve tried to resolve by removing the indexing file (to a different location just in case). Then starting up Thunderbird again to rebuild the file, sadly this did not resolve the issue. Normally I would just re-sync these emails from online, however due to an issue with my mail provider these are no longer available there. I know the emails are still there stored locally, but I can’t access them anymore. Can anyone help? My mail account uses POP

All Replies (2)

Benjamin Kok
Benjamin Kok Question owner
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I’ve also tried to save a copy of the entire mailbox folder and then re-import that into Thunderbird with a plug-in, but mails still aren’t visible.

Helpful?

Matt
Matt
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  • Top 10 Contributor
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Repair does nothing to the underlying store of message. It just builds a new index of messages in the store.

So either the file is corrupt, or that data is not there to index.

What the search is showing you is the portion of the message stored in the search index. It is only reinforcing that the messages are NOT there because it can not display them.

I suggest that you recheck that you account is configured as POP as if they are removed from an IMAP account then they would vanish as you suggest is happening.

Next is your Thunderbird 32 or 64bit? on what operating system.

Clearly you do not have Thunderbird on your iphone and that is the operating system reported from your initial post.

Helpful?

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