How to recover backed up e-mail?

September 10, 2007 10:39 PM

I need to recover some specific e-mails from a Thunderbird MozBackup Profile. Can this be done? I just want a few e-mails, not the whole profile.

I lost some important archived emails that I had saved in a folder when Thunderbird automatically compacted my database. I think I turned this function off, so I should be safe in the future...

I couldn't seem to find any instructions on how to do this anywhere, but it seems like it should totally be possible.

posted by Zimm to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Change the .pcv extension to .zip, open it up, and open up your Inbox (or whatever folder) file in a text editor. Use the find utility in your text editor to find that particular message. You can pull the data out this way easily. The only way I know of to get back the essential e-mail-ness, though, is to restore it into a profile.
posted by anaelith at 11:16 PM on September 10, 2007

Response by poster: Can I restore it into a different profile somehow, so that I don't overwrite my current one? I didn't even think about that, but your response triggered that idea. Mozbackup is set up to be a simple, foolproof program, so that kind of custom restore to a different profile may not be possible. Any idea?
posted by Zimm at 11:26 PM on September 10, 2007

It should prompt you. You should be able to just follow the GUI to create a new profile to restore into. (Although obviously being a good person who's careful where potential data loss is concerned, I would copy my current profile before hand--just duplicating the profile folder to your desktop should be plenty.)
posted by anaelith at 11:49 PM on September 10, 2007