Rebuild Thunderbird email from Inbox file

deltacomputing,

Here are some KB articles to look at.  As DaveHowe points out, typically if you just copy over the profile folder, it theoretically should work, but folder and file locations have to be consistent before and after the move.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_Changing_Profile_Folder_Location#Create_a_new_profile_and_copy_the_old_one_over_it
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_Changing_Profile_Folder_Location
or
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup

actually, for a single box it shouldn't matter - thunderbird stores its data in simple mbox format (essentially just a text file with each email sequentially stored) and stores some additional indexing info in a separate file ending in .mdf - if this file doesn't exist when thunderbird starts, it recreates it.
upshot of this is - if you have a mailbox file (either inbox or a subfolder) and copy it into another profile, as long as it has a unique name it will appear in the folders list when you start thunderbird. obviously, if the name wasn't unique, it will overwrite an existing mailbox....

Thanks for you help.

The only way I was able to retrieve my emails was by uninstalling and reinstalling back to version 1.5

On the very same computer?!?  That makes no sense, because TB 2 and TB 1.5 will use the same profile, but if that is what you had to do, then that is what you had to do.

Perhaps we didn't have all the information and didn't ask the right questions.

Are you interested in getting TB up to date with the latest, more secure version?

If yes, this would be my recommendation.

Start TB 1.5 one more time, have it get your mail, give it some time, then close TB.
As a precaution, simply Copy (don't Move) the entire Profile folder to a backup location, like My Documents\Backup of TB Profile\

Next, fire up Firefox or your Browser of choice, go and download the entire TB 2.0.0.12
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/

Next, use Add/remove and remove TB 1.5, reboot computer, Install the TB 2.0 version, have it start and it should automatically find the default Profile as long as it is in the original location, if you originally gave it a Special Location, you will have to use TB's Profile Manager to point it to the correct profile.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Recovering_a_profile_that_suddenly_disappeared
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/2.0.0.12/releasenotes/#issues

Good luck, if you have any questions, please ask.

The file I managed to read I renamed from inbox.msf.

I have 2 other inboxes that I need to read that don't have any .msf files. The files are 500MB so I know the emails are there I am just struggling to open them.

Thunderbird goes through the process of rebuilding the email files but they remain empty. Is there any other way of viewing these files.

See this
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Phantom_folders

Yes, deltacomputing, there is a way to look at the files, themselves.

First, Close TB, you do not want to have TB running when you are working in any of the Profile directories.

Next go to the file location, find Inbox with no extension, right click it and select Open, Windows should prompt you to select a program to open it with. You can use Notepad or Wordpad if it is too large for notepad to open.

I have one further puzzle with the file I can read. It is 622MB in size but there are only 600 emails displayed in the Inbox and the folders within the inbox aren't displayed

sorry for neglecting this so long deltacomputing.

After rereading this I might have to say to make sure you have hidden files viewable, but also, if you have Inboxes or any folders with subfolders in them, you might have to create those folders in the same hierarchy in the new profile first, then shut down tb and then copy the Inbox or folder/files to the same spots in the new profile.  You do not have to move the .msf files.