Flawless Fixes For Thunderbird Inbox Missing Emails Without Any Hassle

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Thunderbird is a prominently used email client these days. It provides an endless number of facilities to its users while being free of cost. But, sometimes, while using Mozilla Thunderbird email application users confronts some bugs and issues. One such issue is ‘Thunderbird Inbox Missing Emails’. So, with the help of this article, we will guide you through the imminent and effective solutions to fix the disappearing of Inbox messages in Thunderbird.

Indications Of This Error

There are times when Mozilla Thunderbird emails are missing from the inbox and deleted messages reappear. In this case the email messages which are present in the inbox are not visible properly and the ones which are deleted are showing. Though the rest of the folders like sent, outbox, and so on., seems to be fine. This is what the email profile looks like when the error confronts.

Free Solutions to Resolve “Thunderbird Inbox Missing Emails Error” Quickly

The manual solutions are divided into three methods. You can opt any one of them to fix this irritating error in Thunderbird application. All the techniques are discussed in a consecutive manner as follows:

Method #1: Repair Folders in Thunderbird Email Client

Initially, navigate the folder which one you need to repair.
Right click on it and choose properties option.
After that, locate to the General information option.

Repair folders in Thunderbird application

Here, click on Repair folder and hit on OK.

Important Note: Make sure you have turned off Automatic mail checking for smooth operation, as it diminishes the chances of possible error occurrence. Also, do not execute any action on Thunderbird until the procedure is completed successfully.

Method #2: Have Mozilla Thunderbird Recreate Several Folders

This is an alternative if the above-stated solution is not working properly. You can also select this for repairing the MSF folders, which can be done in the following manner:

First of all, ensure that the Mozilla Thunderbird is not running.
Now, open Thunderbird profile directory which is present on your system.
Go to the preferred account's data folder:

IMAP accounts are under ImapMail
For POP accounts: Mail/Local Folders

Here, navigate to the MSF files that correspond to the folders you required to rebuild
Then, delete the .msf files or transfer the files which have .msf as the extension to the trash.
At last, run Mozilla Thunderbird and it will rebuild the deleted .msf index files automatically.

Note: If you are unable to get a positive outcome using this method, you can move to the next alternative.

Method #3: Regenerate MSF files by checking the X-Mozilla-Status

Sometimes, after deleting and rebuilding the Mozilla Thunderbird indexes file, those deleted or missing email messages will reappear. This will automatically fix the Thunderbird Inbox Missing Emails issue. So, let’s go ahead and implement the procedure.

Start Mozilla Thunderbird program and navigate to Help >> Troubleshooting Information option.

After that, click on Open Folder

Then, you will view an ImapMail folder, hit on it or choose the Imap mail account name
Now, select the Inbox and open it using Notepad utility. Each and every mail will appear like the following:

from- Mon April 15:14:40 2018

X-Mozilla-Status: 0001

X-Mozilla-Status2: 00700000

You have to ensure that the X-Mozilla-Status should have the value 0001. If that's not the case, then in this scenario you will have to edit the value
Afterwards, save this file and delete the MSF file as you did in the previous method
Lastly, Restart Mozilla Thunderbird application and ensure if this problem is solved or not.

Note: There are high chances of this technique working if all the steps are performed in an appropriate order to resolve this kind of error.

Some Common Queries Related to This Error

“Need help! I do not know what happened but, all of my Thunderbird emails are missing from Inbox. But, emails in Sent & Trash are totally fine. I tried to delete the ‘Inbox.msf’ file, as advised by someone, then re-started Thunderbird application, but inbox is still empty. My messages are visibly still in the "Inbox" file. I did copy all of that clutter but do not have any idea that how to get it back. Please suggest me a reliable solution to repair this issue.”

“Today, in the morning all emails disappeared from my Thunderbird inbox. Only the inbox folders were affected, all other folders seem OK. Deleting .msf files did not help much, and the repair folder feature under right-click>>Properties also did not work properly. When opening the INBOX mailbox files themselves I can view the emails, though! So the question now is: how can I repair Thunderbird inbox missing emails issue? Please provide me a solution to do the same in an effective way.”

Final Verdict

Thunderbird Inbox Missing Emails is one peculiar issue for users. Since it hinders the very basic function of any email client i.e., viewing the email messages. From the above-mentioned scenario’s it is clear that most of the users are facing this kind of error while using their Thunderbird profile. So, here in this article, we discussed the possible ways to repair the issue in a prominent way. You can take help any method as per your ease.