In addition to using a special folder, Thunderbird also uses what’s called an Attachment Cache file (.msf) which holds attachments connected to your emails. See here for more info on viewing/organising all folders under an IMAP account. *Although technically all emails are stored within this directory structure (including drafts and sent messages etc), they aren’t displayed by default so it’s unlikely that you’ll see anything other than your inbox at first glance. However, if you want to back up or recover emails here then you should be able to find them in either the Inbox or Deleted Items subdirectories respectively. Some email providers create subdirectories within the Inbox directory depending on how many messages there are, while others don’t so it won’t be as clear cut as the Local Folders account. The Account Settings folder – this is used only for POP and IMAP accounts and contains all the mails of the inbox in your Inbox directory*. This is where you’d look to recover/backup all emails across an account if you lost them for some reason (you’ve had a power cut, hard drive went bad etc). All emails from all folders from that account are stored here in. The Local Folders folder – this is the default storage location for most email accounts. So where exactly does Thunderbird store my emails? There are two places Thunderbird stores your emails:ġ. You can also find them via Tools | Account Settings | Storage Folder Location. By default, these special folders are located under ‘C:\Documents and Settings\User Name’ (XP) or ‘C:\Users\User Name’ (Windows Vista).
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All emails are stored here as plain text files – there’s no database file involved! Another way to think about this is that it works just like Windows Explorer or ‘My Computer’. This is called one of the special storage folders: Local Folders, Mail & News Accounts or if you have set up an IMAP account then that folder will be used instead. Thunderbird stores all your mail in a single folder on your hard drive.