Thunderbird Email Client Trouble

[xrocketengineer]

If you are using the Thunderbird Email client, be aware that if you can not "Compact" the files as part of the regular maintenance due to an "unexpected data error" the built in repair tool can wipe out your emails.
I have been using Thunderbird for years with no big issues. In the last few weeks, every time that I was reminded to compact the files, I would get the the error. The standard troubleshooting indicated to delete an index file and when restarting Thunderbird the file would be rebuilt and compacting the files would then work. I tried that several times this with no success. The next thing was to use the Repair File option within Thunderbird. When I used that, all my emails in my computer from June last year until yesterday disappeared with very little hopes that I can recover any of them.

 

[dlsmith]

What version of Thnderbird are you running?
What OS?

 

[BX25D Rookie]

Thunderbird has a built in feature to export the entire data set that contains all of your saved emails,
all of your email contacts, and all of your settings. It will do a export with up to 2GB of saved data and save it to the location you select. That way, if you lose everything, from a failed PC, or a house fire, if you saved that export file to an external backup drive, then you only lose what Thunderbird has saved since your last export.

I do it periodically, every couple months. The Thunderbird export file is a zip file.
With a fresh Thunderbird application installed on a new computer, or a fresh install of Thunderbird on a existing PC, all you do is use the Thunderbird import feature, import that saved export zip file, and it has all of your old emails, all your stored email contacts, and all the previous Thunderbird settings all done automatically.

Very slick features, the export/import.
It saved my bacon several times!