Lost my account

Was trying to set up an alternate email (webmail, pop acct w/inbox.com) and, of course, I managed to really goof things up to where I cannot view my original email inbox account. It appears that I've lost all my emails. Hope not. But would serve me right for acting like a whiz kid (80 yr old kid, that is) with this kinda stuff.

In setting up this new account I tried using an account name similar to my original one. My aim was to have email, via inbox.com, appear in TB also.

Using TB 2.0.0.16., win Xp2, ISP is comcast.net. No other symptoms other than I can't find how to revert back to my original setup. While I have C: drive image back up, it does not include the partition with the TB profile.

My profiles folder is located separately in another partition.( "F:\MosProfile ") I can see the the account under TB Tools>Account Settings but the inboxes are empty.

I can find the original mail.comcast.net folder in the Profile Mail folder along with another (created this date, 17 Aug 08, named "mail.comcast-1.net ") which is essentially empty (1.48 KB).

Apparently, I only see this new, empty folder and not the one I need. I tried renaming the new one but TB just recreated it again as "mail.comcast-1.net ", ignoring the original folder ( "mail.comcast.net ", created 5 Jan 2007 2.87 GB size, BTW).

Is there some way I can bring back the original "mail.comcast.net" folder as my primary incoming email folder?

Appreciate any help. I cannot afford to lose all these emails. BTW, tried system restore - no good.

Bob

 

Typically an Inbox of that magnitude will stop working. I have heard of people with about 1 GB having problems.
But, in any event, if you want to make any changes, it would be in the Account settings|Account name|Server settings|Local Directory. Is the path to yiur account correct. If you did any renaming, on the hard drive they should be reflected in the Local Directory setting.
But, even if you get your original mail back, rename that account Inbox of something like Oldinbox, and delete your Inbox.msf file. When you reopen your program you should have a new Inbox, plus the old mail in Oldinbox. You should not use the Inbox for storage. I would concentrate on cutting down the amount of mail in Oldinbox.
As for what you were trying to do with your Inbox.com account, and how you managed to create another Comcast account, i.e. mail.comcast-1.net, is beyond my understanding.

 

Westside,

Thanks for your reply. I went thru the account steps again and found that somehow I had (unknowingly) clicked the "Global Inbox" found in Tools/Acct Settings/Server Settings/Advanced. Clicking the "Inbox for servers account" corrected the problem; all has returned to normal.

Will study the matter dealing with the size of the email folders. As you said, they do seem quite large. I had no idea this was the case. Lesson learned! I'll keep a "weather eye" on this in the future.

Thanks, again.
Bob

 

Bob,
that Global accounts setting has caused problems to many. I think that the point is to keep all accounts separate, and not together, as is in the case of Opera (may be there is a setting there, but can't find it). But, some people may want to have all mail in one place, for each day.

 

Westside,

Yeah, that was my original intention. But, I can live with their being separate. At least it works. Whole problem started when Comcast decided to change their SMTP port to 587 vice 25 (anti-spam move, I guess). Their email server was in and out for about a week or more - real pain. So, now have Inbox.com set up and running quite well so far.

Naturally, once I do get the alternate up and running, Comcast seems to have settled down. Oh well, that's life I guess!

Appreciate your comments.

Bob

 

Bob,
this proves the point that you are ok, and the rest of the world, take or leave a few, is against you. I have never seen a security measure, like that used by Comcast, and other ISPs, accomplishing anything more than aggravation to the user.
Glad that you got things going.

 

What I've learned

After googling all over the place, I did find a satisfactory solution to the excessive size of my Thunderbird folder; quite simple, once one learns about it:

1 - Right click on inbox (and any of its subfolders, separately)
2 - Select *Compact* for each of the folders, including Sent, template, draft, trash.

Walla! I reduced my TB folder size from almost 3 GB to 59.1 MB. Just that simple. Apparently, this maneuver simply removes the blank spaces that was left by deleted files! Hey TB, can't this be automated?

HTH,
Bob

 

In TB...Tools>Options>Advanced Button>Network and Disk Space. Put check mark in "Compact folders when it will save over _______ "

 

The save over can be, or is already set to 100 Kb. Deleted mail remains associated, in the background, with the Inbox (or other folder), until the folder(s) arecompacted. The fact that this is necessary is to protect trigger happy individuals who want some of the mail back. I think that compacting should be done by default, with the option to change to not compacting, because I have heard of very few individuals who need to retrieve some deleted mail, but several cases of individuals who used their Inbox as an all-purpose pail.
My first encounter with this problem was, years ago with NS4.7, when a friend told me that his Inbox had a modest 18 MB. He could not understand this as he had only three e-mails. I told him to compact the Inbox, and, sure enough, it was fewer than 50 Kb in size.