switching from pop3 to imap on thunderbirfd

[Rashkae]

On
> I went to Edit > Account Settings > "pop3 account name" > Server
> Settings > Local directory
>
> and edited it back to the old ~/.thunderbird/[mainaccount]. It was refused.
>
> I also tried to make a copy of it and then it was not refused, but no
> mail was showed by thunderbird. There is a file
> ~/.thunderbird/[mainaccount]/Mail/Inbox of 2GB there,
> but i cannot read it somehow.
>
> thx...
>

Ok, so far, everything looks promising.  I'm not used to manipulating 
Thunderbird directories within it's profile, so here's how I would 
correct the situation, (caveat, it may not be the most efficient method, 
but I'm confident it will work.)


1. If not already done, do grab a back up copy of your entire 
Thunderbird Profile directory.

2. Under Edit -> Account Settings, verify if there's an account called 
Local Folders, make of a note of what directory it's in.

3. Close the Accounts Window.  In your left hand navigation bar, find 
the Local Folders.  Right Click on Local Folders, and create a new 
Folder.  Name it whatever you want, (example: Foo).  Right click on Foo 
and create another new folder (Example Bar)

4. Close thunderbird.  Navigate your file browser to your profile 
directory.  Copy the files that you believe are your old 2GB Inbox, and 
any other file that might contain mail you want to keep.  (Each mail 
'folder' should be a file).  Place the copy in the new Local Folders Sub 
folder.  (example: ~/.thunderbird/gibberish.default/Mail/Local 
Folders/Foo.sbd.  Copy all the files and all the subfolders you want 
into this directory. (You can just ignore, or even delete, the file 
named Bar).  Delete all the .msf files

When you re-open Thunderbird, In Local Folders, in the new folder you 
created, should be all your old e-mail folders.  (It might take 
Thunderbird a bit of time to re-index before it displays the messages, 
since we deleted the .msf files.)  If Inbox shows up there, but is still 
empty, that means that all the mail in that 2GB folder has been flagged 
as deleted.  There is a way to fix that if it's the case, but it's been 
a few years since I corrected a problem like that, and I would have to 
research it again.