How can I recover emails Thunderbird deleted under its Retention Policy?
I have every email I have ever sent and received saved on my PC, in folders for each year. At least I did, until Thunderbird decided, without asking or warning, to start deleting emails over 180 days old under its "Retention Policy" In Account Settings I clearly ticked the "Don't delete any messages" option (Tools, Account Settings, Disc Space) but for some bizarre reason Thunderbird has another setting (Right click Inbox folder, Properties, Retention Policy) that ignores and overwrites this!
I have now lost emails that are important. I use POP and the server deletes them after 120 days, safe in the knowledge that they are saved on my PC. Except Thunderbird decided to start deleting them!
How can I restore these emails? Where is the trash folder for them, if any? How can Thunderbird do this without asking or warning users? Who thought it a good idea to have two settings for the same thing, with one overwriting the other even when users made a clear choice?
I moved to Thunderbird from Outlook and even converted all my old emails to Thunderbird format and was perfectly happy, but this has really pissed me off. Warning before deleting stuff is UX 101.
Chosen solution
Thanks for your reply. I have never used anything like CCleaner, and the Account Settings (Tools, Account Settings, Disc Space) still had "Don't delete any messages" ticked. That had not changed.
I found the Retention Policy when you right click the Inbox folder and click Properties, then select the Retention Policy tab. That was set to "Delete All messages more than 180 days old" that overruled the Account Settings setting. It even has a check box for "Use my account settings". Why does Thunderbird have a setting that seems very clear and unambiguous but that can be ignored and overruled by another setting in another menu? With no warning or notification?
Edit: I tried the recovery tool you suggested. It recovered a lot of emails that I had manually deleted, but none that Thunderbird had deleted under its retention policy, and none at all from the current Inbox, even ones I had deleted manually. It said "Recovery in progress" and created a deleted emails folder, but found nothing. Any suggestions you can think of?
Bizarrely at the sixth attempt it suddenly worked, having created Deleted emails 0, deleted emails 1, 2, 3 etc suddenly folder 6 has what appears to be all my lost emails. Of course it also has all the emails I have deleted manually so I have to delete them all over again, but it's great to get the lost ones back. Many thanks.
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Use my account settings is the default value of the per folder setting. So the question needs to be asked how did the default get changed. Given that Thunderbird does not store "default" settings, it is very unlikely to be a corruption of the settings file. That really leaves manually (you say you did not do it) or software.
My personal choices would be third party software. I have been aware of ccleaner deleting the sessions.json file for years in some fruitless and unfounded protection of your privacy. All it does is delete settings like the display of the reading pane and other user interface settings.
I would assume you have found a similarly intelligently designed helper probably from a security vendor/machine speedup crowd. Or a badly behaved add-on. But modifying mail retention settings would be a prime candidate for a "free disk space" routine.
The recover deleted message add-on can recover messages from non compacted folders https://freeshell.de//~kaosmos/index-en.html#recDelMsg
Modified by Matt
Chosen Solution
Thanks for your reply. I have never used anything like CCleaner, and the Account Settings (Tools, Account Settings, Disc Space) still had "Don't delete any messages" ticked. That had not changed.
I found the Retention Policy when you right click the Inbox folder and click Properties, then select the Retention Policy tab. That was set to "Delete All messages more than 180 days old" that overruled the Account Settings setting. It even has a check box for "Use my account settings". Why does Thunderbird have a setting that seems very clear and unambiguous but that can be ignored and overruled by another setting in another menu? With no warning or notification?
Edit: I tried the recovery tool you suggested. It recovered a lot of emails that I had manually deleted, but none that Thunderbird had deleted under its retention policy, and none at all from the current Inbox, even ones I had deleted manually. It said "Recovery in progress" and created a deleted emails folder, but found nothing. Any suggestions you can think of?
Bizarrely at the sixth attempt it suddenly worked, having created Deleted emails 0, deleted emails 1, 2, 3 etc suddenly folder 6 has what appears to be all my lost emails. Of course it also has all the emails I have deleted manually so I have to delete them all over again, but it's great to get the lost ones back. Many thanks.
Modified by CarlBassett