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Thunderbird: Headers of sent messages, from/subject/date visible in sent folder but the message itself has vanished.

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  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by Toad-Hall

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Mac OSX Yosemite. Has been working perfectly until this morning when the sent box for one of my email accounts has lost the message bodies of all emails prior to 16 November. Subject/to/from etc are visible in the email list but clicking on them brings empty window. The other email accounts are fine.

Mac OSX Yosemite. Has been working perfectly until this morning when the sent box for one of my email accounts has lost the message bodies of all emails prior to 16 November. Subject/to/from etc are visible in the email list but clicking on them brings empty window. The other email accounts are fine.

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Is there anything mentioned in the 'Activity Manager' regarding the 'Sent' folder - deleting messages etc?

In your 'Anti-virus/firewall' product, if you check it's history, did it quarantine/fix anything to do with any Thunderbird folders?

When you see headers but no body, this tells me your Indexing folder thinks something should exist, but it does not mean it actually exists.

If anti-virus product scanned folder and located something it did not like, it would effect the whole file with emails, but not the index file. So it sounds like the anti-virus did something to the 'Sent' folder.

Repairing the index file will show you exactly what is in the Sent folder. Right click on 'Sent' folder and select 'Properties' click on 'Repair Folder' click on OK


Please can you then check your profile folders.

In Thunderbird

  • Help > Troubleshooting Information
  • click on 'Show folder' button

a new window opens showing contents of profile folder name.

  • Close thunderbird now - this is important.

If POP:

  • click on 'Mail' folder

If IMAP:

  • click on 'ImapMail' folder
  • click on mail account name folder

You are looking for an mbox file called 'Sent' with no extensions. Open the 'Sent' (no extensions) mbox File using Notepad.

Can you see a load of emails written one after the other - especially any with dates prior to 16th Nov?

If no: The emails have been lost perhaps due to something scanning folders. This could be anti-virus product or another malware product you have installed.

If yes: Each email will start with these lines: this is an example

  • From - Sun Dec 28 18:14:40 2014
  • X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
  • X-Mozilla-Status2: 00800000

Use 'Edit' > 'Find' Starting at the top use the look for this line: X-Mozilla-Status: 0001

Make sure each X-Mozilla-Status: has the number 0001

  • edit the number as required working down through the document.
  • Save the file.
  • delete the 'Sent.msf' file. A new one will be auto created.
  • Restart Thunderbird.