We're calling on all EU-based Mozillians with iOS or iPadOS devices to help us monitor Apple’s new browser choice screens. Join the effort to hold Big Tech to account!

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How to I import sent email history?

  • 4 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 19 views
  • Last reply by troutfitter

more options

We recently switched our email locations to Office365. When recreating the first new email (they are the same email addresses) on Thunderbird all of the sent email history is gone. I can still see it all on Office365 but not on Thunderbird.

How can I get them to show up on Thunderbird?

We recently switched our email locations to Office365. When recreating the first new email (they are the same email addresses) on Thunderbird all of the sent email history is gone. I can still see it all on Office365 but not on Thunderbird. How can I get them to show up on Thunderbird?

Chosen solution

Did you back up the mail folders before switching the account? If you can't subscribe to a folder for the new account, open the profile folder and see if there's a subfolder of ImapMail that contains the old account's mail. Help/Troubleshooting Information, click Show in Finder to open the profile in Finder. Look for a file named Sent, with no extension, in a subfolder of ImapMail that is named after the account. Copy the Sent file to Mail/Local Folders (with TB closed), and it should be visible under Local Folders when you restart TB.

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (4)

more options

Is the Sent or Sent Items folder, whatever it's called, a subscribed folder when you right-click the (IMAP) account in the folder pane, Subscribe, click Refresh? With Hotmail/outlook.com accounts, the 'Place a copy in' box should be unchecked in the Copies & Folders section of Account Settings since sent messages are automatically copied to the Sent folder, so I presume the same for Office365 accounts.

more options

That did not work.

How do I recover the sent email history is the real question.

more options

Chosen Solution

Did you back up the mail folders before switching the account? If you can't subscribe to a folder for the new account, open the profile folder and see if there's a subfolder of ImapMail that contains the old account's mail. Help/Troubleshooting Information, click Show in Finder to open the profile in Finder. Look for a file named Sent, with no extension, in a subfolder of ImapMail that is named after the account. Copy the Sent file to Mail/Local Folders (with TB closed), and it should be visible under Local Folders when you restart TB.

more options

There was a delayed reaction to the Subscribe process before it finally took, maybe even after rebooting. I can see all the old sent emails again - thanks for the suggestions.