All local messages deleted
Why does Thunderbird, at its default settings, destroy ALL local mail, when closed and restarted?
Using POP3, it loads the email ok. When I close and restart Firefox, ALL the email has been deleted! Both from the server, and from the Inbox, which is completely empty now. Aargh!
Using IMAP, it works until a message is deleted from the server. Then the local copy disappears as well. I can understand this, but not POP3.
There are a zillion options but I cannot find the one that would make the locally stored messages to survive. Every "Don't delete" and "Keep" I can find are checked, but nothing is kept but all is deleted...
Using Windows 7 and Windows 8 in the two computers I test, and they both behave the same way.
All Replies (3)
I would guess it's downloading the messages, deleting them from the server but failing to write to your local message store.
I don't understand what's happening there. I've never seen Thunderbird do that with a POP account; it's particularly odd that both computers are doing it. But I hope you do understand with POP that it usually works on a "first come first served" basis, with the first client to connect taking all the new messages and leaving the server empty? So to use two separate computers, you need to set them both to leave copies on the server, and you need some strategy to periodically empty the server before it fills up and starts to refuse new incoming messages.
If you really want to service an email account from two or more computers, why are you not using IMAP?
PS: "When I close and restart Firefox" - you don't really mean Firefox here do you?
Modified by Zenos
Thanks. Yes, you are right, I am talking about Thunderbird.
Actually I am using different email accounts on these two computers, too, so they are not emptying the server for each other but only for themselves.
They load the email and everything seems normal. Then I close Thunderbird. The next time I open it, there are zero messages in the Inbox. Everything is just lost.
I'll study if this has to do with disk usage rights. Although I think that then I would not see the messages at all. Now I do but only until I close Thunderbird.
REcently, someone was able to open Thunderbird, set up account, but everytime they closed/exited thunderbird, they lost everything including the profile folder. This was due to a permissions issue on the roaming Thunderbird folder. The culprit on that occassion was the Thunderbird folder was set to run in Avast's sandbox. So althought he could download and read email, upon exit nothing was being saved.
In your case, it is not deleting the Profile, but something is stopping anything being saved in the mail account name. Appdata\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profile\Profile name\Mail\mail account name.
check permissions on the mail account name: make hidden files and folders visible
In thunderbird Help > Troubleshooting information click on 'show folder' a new window opens showing profile folder Close thunderbird now click on Mail folder for Pop mail account (ImapMail for Imap mail account)
Right click on the mail account folder and select 'Properties' Attributes should show a blue square next to Read Only. Do you see a blue square? If yes, that is correct. If it has a tick then select to untick.
click on 'Security' tab Under Group or user names: select your user name Does it show you have full permissions? eg: Full control, modify, read & execute etc all should have a tick in 'allow'.
If you made any changes, click on 'Apply' and then 'OK'.
If you cannot change this, then check you do not have a product like Avast overridding the permissions to that folder, or whether Admin rights allow full control.