Some background info to help explain what may be going on : IMAP mail accounts remotely see the folders on the server and their contents. To see those folders you 'subscribe' to see the folder. Email headers are downloaded and when you click to read email, it is retrieved from server and stored in a temporary cache. It is not downloaded and stored in your Thunderbird profile. If you went into 'offline' mode, you would not be able to read emails as there is no connection to server.

If you 'synchronise' those 'subscribed' folders then a copy of the folder is downloaded and stored in thunderbird Profile. However, as it set to synchronise, it will be periodically auto checking with server to make sure both the server folder and the Thunderbird folder are the same. You can read emails even when in offline mode. Whilst in offine mode, it is the best time to backup emails to an external device.

Emails copied or moved from synchronised imap folder to 'Local Folders' mail account are on your computer in your Thunderbird profile and so need to be included in any backup.

It is a concern that you seem to only be able to see headers with no body, as this suggests that you did not have a local copy.

A global search may have old data and show up emails that you cannot seem to open and read.

To check whether those emails are stored in Thunderbird Proile folders, please do the following. Make hidden files and folders visible:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Show_hidden_files_and_folders

The AppData folder is folder is a hidden folder; to show hidden folders, open a Windows Explorer window and choose "Organize → Folder and Search Options → Folder Options → View (tab) → Show hidden files and folders".

In Thunderbird Help > Troubleshooting Information click on 'show Folder' button a new window opens showing contents of Thunderbird Profile folder name.

If you need to copy, modify etc anything in these folders, you must close Thunderbird now.

Click on 'ImapMail' folder click on imap mail account name.

You will now see all the folders and files with stored info for that imap mail account. If you see files with .msf extension, these are the indexing files and they do not have any emails stored in them. If you see two files with same name and one has the .msf extension, but one has no extension. The one with no extension is the mbox file containing emails. Example:

• Inbox file (this mbox file has emails)
• Inbox.msf file (this is just an indexing file)

If you also see:

• Inbox.sbd Folder

This means you had subfolders in the Inbox. Click on this folder to see more files.

So the question is 'do you have mbox files containing emails or just files with .msf extension?'

Toad-Hall said

Some background info to help explain what may be going on : IMAP mail accounts remotely see the folders on the server and their contents. To see those folders you 'subscribe' to see the folder. Email headers are downloaded and when you click to read email, it is retrieved from server and stored in a temporary cache. It is not downloaded and stored in your Thunderbird profile. If you went into 'offline' mode, you would not be able to read emails as there is no connection to server. If you 'synchronise' those 'subscribed' folders then a copy of the folder is downloaded and stored in thunderbird Profile. However, as it set to synchronise, it will be periodically auto checking with server to make sure both the server folder and the Thunderbird folder are the same. You can read emails even when in offline mode. Whilst in offine mode, it is the best time to backup emails to an external device. Emails copied or moved from synchronised imap folder to 'Local Folders' mail account are on your computer in your Thunderbird profile and so need to be included in any backup. It is a concern that you seem to only be able to see headers with no body, as this suggests that you did not have a local copy. A global search may have old data and show up emails that you cannot seem to open and read. To check whether those emails are stored in Thunderbird Proile folders, please do the following. Make hidden files and folders visible:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Show_hidden_files_and_folders

The AppData folder is folder is a hidden folder; to show hidden folders, open a Windows Explorer window and choose "Organize → Folder and Search Options → Folder Options → View (tab) → Show hidden files and folders". In Thunderbird Help > Troubleshooting Information click on 'show Folder' button a new window opens showing contents of Thunderbird Profile folder name. If you need to copy, modify etc anything in these folders, you must close Thunderbird now. Click on 'ImapMail' folder click on imap mail account name. You will now see all the folders and files with stored info for that imap mail account. If you see files with .msf extension, these are the indexing files and they do not have any emails stored in them. If you see two files with same name and one has the .msf extension, but one has no extension. The one with no extension is the mbox file containing emails. Example:

• Inbox file (this mbox file has emails)
• Inbox.msf file (this is just an indexing file)

If you also see:

• Inbox.sbd Folder

This means you had subfolders in the Inbox. Click on this folder to see more files. So the question is 'do you have mbox files containing emails or just files with .msf extension?'

Hello, Toad-Hall. Thank you for reply.

Yes, I see many files such as Inbox without extension (Junk, Sent, etc) with large size (300 megabytes, 100 megabyts, etc).

MSF files are here too.

What's next step?

As these mbox files are your only copy, I would first make a backup. You can right click on mbox file and select copy, then paste it into a folder outside of Thunderbird, preferably on an external drive. then you would have a backup of mbox files with emails.

Try this method to get them out of that imap account into Local Folders. download the ImportExportTools addon extension to your eg; Desktop, from this link:

• https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexporttools/

How to install: Tools > addons or Menu icon > Adons

click on gear wheel icon and select 'Install addon from file' locate the file you downloaded and click on Open You might need to restart Thunderbird.

Create a suitably named folder in Local Folders to hold the imported mbox files. Use the ImportExporttool to import the mbox files. Right click on the folder you created and select:

'ImportExporttools' > 'Import mbox file' 

select; Import directly one or more mbox files' click on OK Select one of those mbox files - one without extension eg: Inbox click on Open. This should import the whole mbox file. repeat to import other mbox files.

Dear Toad-Hall!

I have done all things you wrote. - downloaded import-export-tools, installed it - manage IET to import mbox files.

The resulе is: - if I import all folder, only the some of message files were imported - if I import only mbox file, it imports all the files, but without attaches - if I import direct eml files (yes, i find eml files in certain folders), it imports all folder, but without attaches too.

So, now I have at least message bodies, but without attaches. Yes, it greatly helped me.

Is that possible to recover messges with attaches?

I made screenshot of folder in which i interested very much. Hope it gives some additional info of what is in TB folders.

http://pixs.ru/showimage/avtboxpng_9168615_17516694.png

re: [AVT].mozmsgs Each *.wdseml file is a partial copy (up to 20kb) of a message in the mail folder, stored in a .mozmsgs subdirectory. It is used by Windows Search Integration (requires Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8). They're actually renamed .eml files. You can disable this feature by unchecking Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> General -> System Integration -> "Allow Windows Search to search messages". So anything in this folder is created and used by a Windows search and only contains partial messages that are actually stored in mbox files.

These are not the original messages, they will be in the mbox files. So if you tried to import these eml files, they may be incomplete and unlikely to have any attachments.

re: [AVT] file (no extension) This is an mbox file that should contain emails. This this the mbox file you should import using IET. If emails were originally downloaded with attachments, they should be imported as Thunderbird does not auto detach attachments.

re: AVT.msf This is the indexing file for the AVT mbox file. It does not contain emails. when you import the [AVT] mbox file, thunderbird will auto create a new index file.

I notice that these files are stored in : &BBQEOARBBEIEQAQ4BDEETAROBEIEPgRABEs-.sbd folder.

So I'm presuming you have a folder in your Thunderbird Folder Pane with that name, which contains subfolders; including one called AVT.

I'm adding this link as it may help others:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Importing_folders

Dear Toad-Hall!

Thank you for your reply. I will try again tomorrow.