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Retrieve an email from a backup

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  • Last reply by david

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Using Thunderbird on Windows. I deleted an email that has an attachment that I need. I have a backup copy of my Thunderbird folder on an external hard drive. I'm assuming the file I need is in the large file called INBOX with no extension (?) How do I access it to get that one particular email?

Using Thunderbird on Windows. I deleted an email that has an attachment that I need. I have a backup copy of my Thunderbird folder on an external hard drive. I'm assuming the file I need is in the large file called INBOX with no extension (?) How do I access it to get that one particular email?

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I believe you could copy INBOX and INBOX.msf to your Local Folders folder in profile (being sure not to overwrite any file of same name), when TB is not running and then start TB and it should be there.

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Yes. I have done that before (when I build a new computer or replace hard drive, etc.) But that restores *EVERYTHING* and in this case, that's not what I want.

The email I'm looking for is from late-June and I have a backup that was done on July 1, so the email I need should be in that backup. But I don't want to wipe out all my existing emails and replace them with a backup from July 1.

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I wasn't proposing that; I was proposing making a copy of the inbox and placing it such that you could open the folder and locate the desired email. The two items could easily be renamed to something other than INBOX to avoid overwriting your folder, as I suggested.