Inbox messages disappeared

[jbclem3]

My Inbox (Thunderbird 44) has months worth of messages in it. But just
now I started up Thunderbird and while I was watching all these Inbox
messages vanished, leaving only one (the most recent one, possibly just
downloaded).

The Inbox is set to show ALL messages. Does anyone know what happened
here and if I can retrieve the missing messages?

John

[Wolf K]

1st, make a backup of the Profile, just in case.
Lots of help online, here's one:
https://www.lifewire.com/back-up-thunderbird-settings-1173141

Check the files and folders in /Mail. After months worth of email, Inbox
should be in the hundreds of MB at least. If it isn't, you're in
trouble. If Inbox looks big enough, you can retrieve the messages.

2nd, Restart Thunderbird, and
Repair Folder: right click on Inbox - Properties - Repair Folder
Do this for all folders.

Continue with
Compact Folders: left click on account name - File (on menu bar) -
Compact folders.

If all goes well, read you email, then update to latest Thunderbird.

Good luck,

--
Wolf K
kirkwood40.blogspot.com
"The next conference for the time travel design team will be held two
weeks ago."

[Jeff Layman]

What Account Settings do you have for "Synchronisation and Storage |
Disk space"?

--

Jeff

[Good Guy]

On 16/01/2018 13:02, jbclem3 wrote:

The Inbox is set to show ALL messages.  Does anyone know what happened here and if I can retrieve the missing messages?

It could be that you have inadvertently clicked on the Unread icon/button and so all your messages have "vanished" from sight!!  I suggest try clicking on the icon couple of times to see if it makes any difference.  It is a toggle button so like a switch it is on/off.  See this picture to see what I mean.

--

With over 600 million devices now running Windows 10, customer satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows.

[jbclem3]

On 1/16/2018 5:02 AM, jbclem3 wrote:

I've tried the suggestions...I found the Inbox file with 62mb in it.
Copied the profile, restarted Thunderbird, repaired, compacted. Nothing
happened after the repair, and the compacting cut the Inbox file down to
161,000 kb...good thing I copied the profile!

Under syncronization and storage, the only things checked are "don't
delete any messages" and älways keep starred messages.

As to the UNREAD icon, I don't have this icon anywhere so I couldn't
have clicked it. I also don't have the other icons shown, ie:
STARRED,CONTACT,TAGS, ATTACHMENTS. Is that a different tool bar in a
different version?

So what to do now? I still have the backup profile, I'm guessing the
index file must be bad. Is there any other way to fix it?

John

[Good Guy]

On 16/01/2018 22:40, jbclem3 wrote:

As to the UNREAD icon, I don't have this icon anywhere so I couldn't have clicked it.  I also don't have the other icons shown, ie: STARRED,CONTACT,TAGS, ATTACHMENTS. Is that a different tool bar in a different version?

Go to View >> Toolbars >> Quick Filter Bar

See this picture:




Good luck.

My Inbox (Thunderbird 44) has months worth of messages in it.  But just
now I started up Thunderbird and while I was watching all these Inbox
messages vanished, leaving only one (the most recent one, possibly just
downloaded).

The Inbox is set to show ALL messages.  Does anyone know what happened
here and if I can retrieve the missing messages?

John

[jbclem3]

Thanks, I found the icons...they were greyed out but still worked. It
didn't fix the problem but it's good to know about them.

On 1/16/2018 3:13 PM, Good Guy wrote:
> On 16/01/2018 22:40, jbclem3 wrote:
>>
>>
>> As to the UNREAD icon, I don't have this icon anywhere so I couldn't
>> have clicked it. I also don't have the other icons shown, ie:
>> STARRED,CONTACT,TAGS, ATTACHMENTS. Is that a different tool bar in a
>> different version?
>>
>>
> Go to View >> Toolbars >> Quick Filter Bar
>
> See this picture:
>

> https://i.imgur.com/wn3dH7Q.png <https://i.imgur.com/wn3dH7Q.png>

[Chris]

>> On 16/01/2018 22:40, jbclem3 wrote:
>>>
>>>> My Inbox (Thunderbird 44) has months worth of messages in it. But just
>>>> now I started up Thunderbird and while I was watching all these Inbox
>>>> messages vanished, leaving only one (the most recent one, possibly just
>>>> downloaded).
>>>>
>>>> The Inbox is set to show ALL messages. Does anyone know what happened
>>>> here and if I can retrieve the missing messages?
>>>>
>>>> John
>
>

The icons are grey by design and I think it's a horrible choice.
If you want sensible colours, look for a theme.

You may be able to repair your Inbox by opening its mbox file with
a good editor and changing the X-Mozilla-Status flags to 0.


Again, make sure you have a backup beforehand.
--
Chris

[Jeff Layman]

On 16/01/18 22:40, jbclem3 wrote:
> On 1/16/2018 5:02 AM, jbclem3 wrote:
>
> I've tried the suggestions...I found the Inbox file with 62mb in it.
> Copied the profile, restarted Thunderbird, repaired, compacted. Nothing
> happened after the repair, and the compacting cut the Inbox file down to
> 161,000 kb...good thing I copied the profile!
>
> Under syncronization and storage, the only things checked are "don't
> delete any messages" and älways keep starred messages.
>
> As to the UNREAD icon, I don't have this icon anywhere so I couldn't
> have clicked it. I also don't have the other icons shown, ie:
> STARRED,CONTACT,TAGS, ATTACHMENTS. Is that a different tool bar in a
> different version?
>
> So what to do now? I still have the backup profile, I'm guessing the
> index file must be bad. Is there any other way to fix it?
>
> John

Although you can't see the messages, I wonder if you can export them.

Right click on inbox.
Import/ExportTools -- > Export all messages in the folder. This gives
various options, and exporting as a text or HTML file might allow you to
view them outside of TB.

--

Jeff