Where did you install Firefox from? Help Mozilla uncover 3rd party websites that offer problematic Firefox installation by taking part in our campaign. There will be swag, and you'll be featured in our blog if you manage to report at least 10 valid reports!

Avatar for Username

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

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

How to restore email from backup files for IMAP account

  • 1 reply
  • 1 has this problem
  • 13 views
  • Last reply by christ1

Passacaglia
Passacaglia
more options

Here's the problem -- at some point in the past couple of months, Yahoo decided to delete about 18 months worth of my email. This apparently happened sometime around the 7th of May (since that's the earliest date in my inbox). Fortunately, I am diligent about backups and have a complete copy of my Thunderbird profile from before that time.

My question is, how to restore email from my backup. I tried shutting down Thunderbird and copying INBOX (and INBOX.msf & INBOX.mozmsgs) from the backup into my current profile. But seeing as this is an IMAP account, as soon as I started up Thunderbird it synchronized with the server, noted that these files did not exist on the server and promptly deleted them from the local Thunderbird file. I'm assuming that if I copy the complete profile instead of just the mail files the same thing will happen. I assume I need to get them back onto the IMAP server. Ideas?

Here's the problem -- at some point in the past couple of months, Yahoo decided to delete about 18 months worth of my email. This apparently happened sometime around the 7th of May (since that's the earliest date in my inbox). Fortunately, I am diligent about backups and have a complete copy of my Thunderbird profile from before that time. My question is, how to restore email from my backup. I tried shutting down Thunderbird and copying INBOX (and INBOX.msf & INBOX.mozmsgs) from the backup into my current profile. But seeing as this is an IMAP account, as soon as I started up Thunderbird it synchronized with the server, noted that these files did not exist on the server and promptly deleted them from the local Thunderbird file. I'm assuming that if I copy the complete profile instead of just the mail files the same thing will happen. I assume I need to get them back onto the IMAP server. Ideas?

All Replies (1)

christ1
christ1
  • Top 25 Contributor
more options

Restore the backed up mail file to your Local Folders account. Then upload the messages to the server again.