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

Thunderbird deletes emails on email server. How do I recover them?

  • 42 replies
  • 4 have this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by shadyz

more options

As briefly discussed here https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1028648 i have unknowingly been letting thunderbird delete my emails for quite some time. Short of talking to each email support to bring back my emails, how can i recover them?

As briefly discussed here https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1028648 i have unknowingly been letting thunderbird delete my emails for quite some time. Short of talking to each email support to bring back my emails, how can i recover them?

All Replies (20)

more options

Does anyone know of a solution ?

more options

Need info: What OS? Is this a Pop or IMAP mail account? Is it a gmail account?

more options

Windows 7 64bit It's not gmail ,and i guess it's pop3 http://help.abv.bg/?p=1240

more options

That last link describes how i set it up i'm pretty sure

more options

IMAP mail accounts are different, they only store emails on server and you see a remote view of them by subscribing to see the folders.

Pop mail accounts usually download from server Inbox to pop mail account Inbox and delete the copy off the server. This is done to prevent you from accuing a load of emails on server and using up your quota. You can change this by checking the following, but remember to check the server every so often to remove old mail so to not use up quota.

'Tools' > 'Acount Settings' > 'Server Settings' for the pop mail account or 'Menu Icon' > 'Options' > 'Acount Settings' > 'Server Settings'

  • Select: Check for new messages at startup'
  • Select: Check for new messages every xx minutes
  • Select: Automatically download new messages
  • Select: 'Leave messages on server'
  • Select: 'Until I delete them' (this will only delete the ones you delete)
  • Click on OK to save changes.
more options

You should also check: 'Tools' > 'Acount Settings' > 'Disc Space' for the pop mail account or 'Menu Icon' > 'Options' > 'Acount Settings' > 'Disc Space'

  • Select: 'Don't delete any messages'
  • Select: 'Always keep starred messages'
  • Click on OK to save any changes.


It is also worth remembering to compact folders on a regular basis to rmove all traces of 'marked as deleted' mail. This frees up space in the file and reduces the file size. It also helps to maintain folders. See info on compacting - what it does and why it is important:

more options

Toad-Hall said

IMAP mail accounts are different, they only store emails on server and you see a remote view of them by subscribing to see the folders. Pop mail accounts usually download from server Inbox to pop mail account Inbox and delete the copy off the server. This is done to prevent you from accuing a load of emails on server and using up your quota. You can change this by checking the following, but remember to check the server every so often to remove old mail so to not use up quota. 'Tools' > 'Acount Settings' > 'Server Settings' for the pop mail account or 'Menu Icon' > 'Options' > 'Acount Settings' > 'Server Settings'
  • Select: Check for new messages at startup'
  • Select: Check for new messages every xx minutes
  • Select: Automatically download new messages
  • Select: 'Leave messages on server'
  • Select: 'Until I delete them' (this will only delete the ones you delete)
  • Click on OK to save changes.

Yeah but i don't have that problem and i'm sure most people don't because email providers usually offer 10gb of space, which is very hard to fill up.. In fact if anything i have less space on my hdd than free space in my emails. So now my issue is how do i get back my emails to the server ,which i didn't want deleted in the first place. Thank you

Modified by shadyz

more options

You do not say whether the settings were correct or whether you needed to modify them?

These emails that are not on the server (deleted) - are they on your computer in your Thunderbird Pop mail account?

more options

Well yes ,right now the settings are okay,but when i noticed thunderbird deleting them i had to change them to not delete from the server.

I think most of the emails i want back to the server are in thunderbird ,yes

more options
more options

Thank you ,that might help ,but can i mass-restore all the emails? Will it change the time at which the emails were received?

more options

Headers are kept the same - more details here:

more options

I am receiving this error:

An error occurred while sending mail. The mail server responded: Invalid From address - xxxx@gmail.com. Please check the message and try again.

more options

The error happens when i try to redirect an email with that addon and thunderbird asks me for my email password and when i type it in ,that's the error

And then xxx@gmail.com is the email sender of the email i'm trying to redirect

Modified by shadyz

more options

It says "message sending failed" at the bottom of the redirect window

more options

I'm a bit perplexed because you asked on how to put emails back onto the server they were removed from and that the mail account was not gmail. You have to put the emails back onto the same server they were on originally. quote: Windows 7 64bit. It's not gmail ,and i guess it's pop

more options

Yes ,and? I thought i do that by clicking on redirect... Doing that gives me that error, so...?

more options

So what should i be doing about that?

more options

I presume you downloaded the maildirect xpi file from here: http://mailredirect.sourceforge.net/installation.html

Then you installed the addon: Tools > Addons OR Menu icon > Addons clicked on gear wheel icon and selected 'Install addon from file' You then restarted Thunderbird.

To redirect a message back to yourself, so it goes back onto server: Select the email Message > Redirect OR Right click on email and select 'Redirect' from the drop down selection.

a small window opens. It should say 'Resend from' - your email address Resend to: your email address (because you are effectively forwarding to yourself) click on 'Redirect'.

more options

Yes, that is what i did and thats the error that i got

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3