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I’ve been using Mozilla Thunderbird as my exclusive desktop mail client at home and work for the last six or eight months. It’s been a perfectly capable and full-feature mail client, it’s not part of the Microsoft monopoly, and I like supporting Mozilla.
Several weeks ago though, my home instance started having problem. The indicator was that the Inbox count (the number of messages) was incorrect, and would often rapidly increase to a huge and incorrect number (200,000+ sometimes). Additionally, checking mail found sometimes fail, and the status bar would display incorrect or irrelevant information.
I did a little research and learned that I should be (have been) compacting my folders regularily to prevent mailbox corruption. To do so, highlight a folder or account, and go File > Compact Folders. Check out How to compact folders in Mozilla Thunderbird for all the details.
I tried several times to compact the folders, but either the process would fail or, if compeleted, wouldn’t fix the program. I concluded after research that this indicated the my mailbox data files had become corrupt. The mail data was OK, but the index, or table of contents of that data was corrupt.
Lukily, Thunderbird can easily create a new index file (foo.msf, for Mail Summary File), and will do so automatically if it finds the file missing. After locating my Profile Folder, I deleted all the .msf files that were causing problems. (Actually ALL of ‘em, just to be safe.) There’s a .msf for each of your mail folders, so your number of .msf files will vary — I had a few dozen.
(To be safe, cut-and-paste a copy of your Profile Folder to a safe location before mucking around in your profile.)
With the bad files out of the system, I booted Thunderbird back up and watched as it rebuilt each index file. Problem solved. It’s been working perfectly since.
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Joshua Groboski January 17th, 2006 - 9:47 am
Just out of curiosity, how many messages did you have in the corrupted folder? I have been using Thunderbird on my home machines for well over a year and I’ve never had problems like these. I can say that I currently have at least one folder with somewhere between eight and ten thousand emails inside, about 1400 of which have not been seen. I’m also curious whether this problem would appear for IMAP configured clients.
natek January 17th, 2006 - 11:22 am
Hey Joshua,
I have pretty complex filter system, putting about 1000 messages per day into about 50 folders. The “inbox” itself it around 5000 folders (I move non-filtered messages older than 3 months into monthly archives).
I’ve got every (non-spam) mail sent or received since late 2001, so I’d guess the total count is somewhere above 100,000 messages.
Perhaps a lot, but I think a client should be able to handle any number, especially if they’re not in the often-used Inbox folder.
All the accounts that feed into my Thunderbird are POP accounts. I don’t know the inner workings, but I think it’s an issue with the storage on Thunderbird’s side, no related to the protocol, so perhaps it doesn’t matter.
natek January 17th, 2006 - 11:46 am
I should add that I have two Thunderbirds, one at home and one at work. The problems I experienced were on my home machine. I haven’t had any problems with the work install, and it has the exact same mail count and filter system.
Stewart March 3rd, 2006 - 9:05 pm
Nate, you just saved my bacon. I somehow corrupted by Tbird profile (3 different accounts; lots of folders) and kept crashing Tbird on every startup. Couldn’t even bring it up in safe mode. Great idea about deleting the .msf files. (This tip should be on the Mozilla site, but I didn’t find it.) Glad I Googled you — I was getting ready to set up a new profile and manually migrate all of messages from my corrupt profile to the new one. Instead, one minute and I’m back on track. Thanks!
fweill March 21st, 2006 - 9:51 am
Thank you for posting this experience. I encountered similar issues with Thunderbird Windows 1.5.0.1 i.e. very slow to display my Inbox when I launched Thunderbird, and number of files corrupted after 10-15 minutes of use. I deleted the .msf file as you suggested and it works again.
Morten Bach March 26th, 2006 - 2:23 am
Thanks a bunch, Nate! I had the same trouble with Thunderbird’s very slow startup, but after compacting all of my folders, everything works fine again. :-)
Bob April 3rd, 2006 - 5:17 am
Thanks … had same issue… Googled … and you were the hit that solved my problem. Now if I can only find out why Firefox hangs on so many JavaScript sites (and increasing the “unresponsive script” timer doesn’t do it !).
carol April 6th, 2006 - 9:10 am
I had a similar problem - symtom is that I would delete messages but they stay in the inbox. I compact folders regularly (set a small size threshhold) and have to repeatedly delete the .msf files, sometimes several times a day, and restart TB mail. This is very annoying. Why do the .msf become corrupt so often? I feel it’s a bug, but can’t find it in the “known problems” of TB mail.
Comments?
John April 9th, 2006 - 1:37 pm
Thanks for the blog Nate. It help me solved my problem on two separate machines. I just want to add that I don’t believe this have to do with the amount of messages you have in the inbox. Because, one of the machine that have the problem only have 150 messages in it. The second machine does have more messages. But, not in the 1000 messages yet. The only common ground on both of these machines are never compact the folders in Thunderbird.
Eric April 10th, 2006 - 12:32 pm
My inbox keeps growing too. I deleted all the .msf files, closed Thunderbird, then restarted the computer. But the problem persists. Is there a step I’m missing? Or is there another way of logging out/in that I don’t know of? Thanks for your help.
Hiram April 19th, 2006 - 3:33 pm
Thank you for your experience. It helped me to eliminate problems with Tbird, as they appeared out oif nowhere! Suddenly, inbok started showing false number s of unread msgs, and then sometimes emails would not open, or open blank. Another thing was the annoying “creating index for inbox” waiting tme. it appears it works now, thanks!
MS April 29th, 2006 - 7:12 pm
Thanks a LOT for the tip of deleting *.msf files to fix the problem others were facing….
Russ Desaulniers June 1st, 2006 - 9:23 pm
Awesome. Thanks a lot for the great info. I went into the application files for Thunderbird, and deleted all .msf files, reopened Thunderbird, and problem was still there. Went through all folders, starting at the bottom, and let it form new .msf files, all the way up to Inbox. Closed, and reopened and it’s all better now.
David Zucker June 5th, 2006 - 3:51 pm
Maybe you could help with another problem I’m having with thunderbird. When I first downloaded and installed the program it asked me for my pop3 password. I entered it and it ran for a few weeks, then it stopped downloading any new messages. I used my web Email program to check and I’m still getting my mail fine. I reloaded the program a few different times and uninstalled it. Now when it installs it does not ask for my password. The lower left corner shows it trying to connect but I get no messages.
Where did it think it got the password from?
Any ideas?
fellz June 10th, 2006 - 7:25 am
I’m having a quite similar problem - from time to time thunderbird does not download new messages all day. i know that there are new messages because i’m using the “poptray” email notifier which shows me the msgs in my pop acocunt. then, one day later (this varies) the messages are being downloaded but “Inbox” is not being displayed bold and it doesn’t show that there are new messages - like “Inbox (5)”.
I have created a new profile from scratch and even set up a new pop account with a different password and username.
And it’s hard to reproduce as this happens from time to time only. Compressing folders didn’t help. I’m suspecting filter to be a potential problem?!
Robyn June 18th, 2006 - 12:26 am
This is just the solution I’m looking for - but, I can’t find any .msf files. I’ve found the profiles folder. It contains a folder called Iss6clw1.default which in turn contains chrome, mail, extensions and news folders plus about 20 other files, none of them .msf.
Is there anyone out there who can help this non-technical Thunderbird afficianada sort out her Inbox?!!
AJ June 27th, 2006 - 2:56 pm
Exact same problem..inbox counts keeps increasing and the thunderbird respose keeps getting slower and slower. Deleted the .msf files from my profile and like you said, the next time I started thunderbird, it rebuilt the summary files. Thanks a lot for posting this nice little maintainence tip.
AJ June 27th, 2006 - 3:03 pm
Hey Robyn,
Assuming that you went with a standard installation, your .msf file would be located in the “Local Folders” under “mail” folder if you have setup you mail accounts such that all accounts bring the mail to one single folder. If you have setup individual accounts to bring mail to individual folders, then you .msf file would be located in multiple folders under the “mail” folder. Ofcourse, when I say “mail” folder, I am refering to the “mail” folder that you found in Profiles\Iss6clw1.dfault\mail.
greg July 6th, 2006 - 1:31 pm
After spending hours trying to figure out what happened to Thunderbird, I tried this and it worked. I am really excited! I had to use Delete FXP files to delete a few of the *.msf files (perhaps they were the bad ones)
Thanks!!
daniel July 21st, 2006 - 12:38 am
My inbox looked like it had 2Go.
To get rid of it :
1. I opened Thunderbird
2. I created a new folder , transfer the messages in the inbox folder (no need to copy the subfolders) to it.
3. in the account , I found out the path to the local folder
4. I closed Thunderbird
5. I went to the local folder path and I deleted the “Inbox” file
6. I create a new empty “Inbox” file
7. I opened Thunderbird
8. I transfered the messages from my copy of the inbox to the inbox
et voila !!
Bas July 26th, 2006 - 7:26 am
Hey man, thanks! Just yesterday my inbox at work (only 2000 messages) started to fail, and I did some google searches and found your site. Deleteing the MSF files did the trick, TBird started back up and everything was fast and fine.
Thank you!
Chris July 30th, 2006 - 7:48 pm
I know from experience that another way for the Inbox, or other Thunderbird email folders and contents, to disappear is for Norton or other incompatible antivirus software to scan it, find a virus, and quarantine the whole file. It’s not lost, it’s just quarantined. This page and its links are very helpful for recovering from this situation and preventing recurrence. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Antivirus_software
Wayne August 1st, 2006 - 6:39 pm
My old machine has issues. I need to reformat the hard drive. I can’t seem to figure out how to move my Thunderbird e-mail files from one machine to the other. I will still continue to use Thunderbird on my new machine. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Wayne
Steve L. August 15th, 2006 - 11:39 pm
I have a problem too with my Thunderbird 1.0. Twice now I have lost all data in the application including inbox, sent, and accounts. This time it happened right after I checked a message for a telephone number. As I quit the application, the next time I started it up (wihtin a few seconds), T-bird asked me to go through set up as if I was installing it for the first time. I’ve had to import data from Outlook Express to get only part of my email data back. Does anyone know what happened & how to get my email data back ?
CBEGLEY September 12th, 2006 - 6:55 pm
THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOO MUCH!
very important emails were lost.. er appeared to be…
i’m going to try it out now to see if it works. but the problem you described is exactly what i’ve got going on. so i’m sure it will work. thank you!
Ray October 2nd, 2006 - 12:43 pm
I had to re-install windows XP. I backed up my system but now I can’t find my old emails from my Mozilla Thunderbird. Can anyone help, please
João Brito October 25th, 2006 - 8:43 am
Thunderbird Backup.
Dear Nate, I haven’t had the same problems as you, but I had a bad time to find out how to make backup of Thunderbird messages, a soft I love, much for the same reasons as you. I found out that you just need to make a copy of the messages folders. Well then I took them out of my HD but, how to access them again? The first answer is to copy them back to the local folders, but it takes a lot of time. Them I discovered a little opensource app that does the job: mbox viewer. http://sourceforge.net/projects/mbox-viewer
With it you can access the message files you copied, because Thunderbird follows the mbox standard. Hope this helps making Thunderbird even more useful for all of us. Regards, João, from Brazil.
nate koechely November 28th, 2006 - 2:39 am
hello, this is a test of the email notification system.
me smith November 28th, 2006 - 2:40 am
just testing- sorry
Ron December 21st, 2006 - 6:34 am
Been using Thunderbird for several months at work and right after our IT dept. pushed out a Norton A/V update, all of my Thunderbird disappeared. This included the icon, the shortcuts in the Start programs and a wild card search for the mail files turns up nothing. A wild card earch for Thunderbird turns up the applicationa dn when clicking on that it wants to set up like new. I’ve read through the above hints an suggestions, but it didn’t appear that anyone quite had this same problem. But I’m going to check out some of them anyhow. Any suggestions would be helpful.
Balamurugan January 17th, 2007 - 1:28 am
Hi,
I have few messages in my inbox.it shows the size is 5mb.The issue is i cant able to delete the messages, the error show “The command didnot succeed,the mail server responded mailbox does not exist”.could plz tell me how to solve this problem.
By,
bala
Ben January 24th, 2007 - 7:35 am
Hi,
Ok, I’m the guy that’s the user and not the programmer, when it comes to tech stuff, I’m not the brightest. I suddenly lost all mail in my TB inbox back to 01/11/2006. The problem is I use this inbox for 3 business account emails with various routings to these inboxes. Could you guys lpease give step by step dummy instructions on how to get my mail back urgently, as I am loosing business.
PLEASE HELP???
Best Wishes
Ben van der Walt
Rob February 1st, 2007 - 7:14 pm
Today on 01-Feb-2007, I ran PandaSoft’s online virus scanner.
Later that evening opened my Thunderbird mail to discover that all of my Inbox messages were duplicated.
But, even though the Subject was duplicated, the body belonged to the next message!
A Web search turned up others who had this happen to them, but no suggestions on a fix.
So, I followed your suggestion, deleted the Inbox.msf, restarted Thunderbird and presto, chango everything back to normal.
Thanks
Ben February 4th, 2007 - 11:35 pm
I’ve deleted all .msf files, but no luck, I am still trying to recover 3 month’s mails. My issue seems a bit different, as all my emails were not deleted, only the past 3 months. Any suggestions?
Dan February 6th, 2007 - 7:17 pm
Well, all of my emails suddenly disappeared.. but only starting January 31st and earlier… should I try the delete msf files or is it something else…. (My “View” is set for all, not just the last 5 days…)… any suggestions/HELP!
Bennie Q. Shaft February 14th, 2007 - 8:26 am
To find the “msf” files on my W98 computer, I merely do a “find” for inbox, drafts, sent, junk, templates, unsent, and trash, one at a time, of course. I then delete the “msf” files right from the “find” box. They are VERY easy to find using this method.
Wilbur February 27th, 2007 - 5:31 pm
Just another good comment here, I migrated from Outlook and a number of my folders were blank, but the files themselves have considerable size. Deleting the msf files did the trick!
Thanks!
Phil March 15th, 2007 - 12:49 am
Hi,
After compacting my emails in Thunderbird, all my emails in 2007 were gone?
I tried deleting all the *.msf files. it is still the same. Can I still retrieve my files, Can anybody help?
with high hopes,
-Philipp
dave March 20th, 2007 - 3:23 am
I’ve lost my inbox about 3 times now.. not massive sizes of messages, Thunderbird just decides to zero them now and then..
not too happy.. Maybe I should dump it.
Barry Gow March 21st, 2007 - 3:16 pm
When using Mozilla Thunderbird, if I select “last 5 days” the list of selected subjects appears briefly and then disappears. If I select “all” or “recent mail” these work and I can read the emails. If I customize “last 4 days” for example, I also get nothing.
Has anyone experienced someting like this and even better, does anyone know how to fix the problem?
Charlotte March 23rd, 2007 - 5:49 pm
I’m wondering if this is what happened to me.. I’m just dumbfounded as to what happened. Everything was working fine with no problems at all. I turned my computer off to come back later and boot it up.. go to check my email and it opens like it’s just been installed, asking to make a new profile and all of my emails are gone. it’s just empty! grrr.. no clue what happened. I’m wondering if doing this will restore everything..
Bill M June 10th, 2007 - 7:48 am
T’bird mail folders are gobbling up my hard drive !
I’ve got more than 12 gigs of old mail showing in Application Data for T’bird even though I’ve deleted the files in the program interface itself.
I hate the thought of just deleting the inbox files for various pop addresses but some of them show no activity since January (and are more than a gig in size).
If I’ve
1- Deleted files from program interface itself and
2- Still have stuffed mail folders in Application Data
Do I dare just delete files through Internet Explorer?
Thanks in advance.
Moz-ThunderBird Inbox Counting [Aneh] « Piece of Life Recorded August 13th, 2007 - 8:28 pm
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Studi0 2 November 22nd, 2007 - 10:20 am
I have the same problem as someone above mentioned. Started Thunderbird (v2 on XP) up - it’s all blank asking me to set up an account like it’s just been installed!
I did a system restore and still nothing.
Is there a way to recover please?