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No Sent Folder resolved but no old sent messages

Trevandpenny
Hooked
Posts: 7
Registered: ‎17-03-2019

No Sent Folder resolved but no old sent messages

Hi

A couple of months ago the Sent folder disappeared from Thunderbird - the only visible folders were Inbox, Deleted and Drafts there were no other folders listed in the Subscribe options.

We read several of the threads on this forum but could find no resolution to the problem.

 

Yesterday we accessed our email account via Firefox and were asked to complete our Send information ( even though we'd done this previously ) and after doing this, decided to send a test email to see what happened - we ran Thunderbird, refreshed the subscribed folders and...VOILA !!! There they were, all back together again.

We sent a test email from Thunderbird which flashed through the Sending process but failed to complete the Copying process.

This was resolved by altering the location in Settings>Copies & Folders> ' Place a copy in ' from ' Sent folder on ' to ' Other ' and manually selecting the Sent folder in the listed account ( a method suggested in a thread on this forum )

However, the problem now is that the Sent folder is empty aside from the test email and we need access older emails

Could you please recover our Sent emails ?

13 REPLIES 13
jab1
Legend
Posts: 16,817
Thanks: 5,339
Fixes: 248
Registered: ‎24-02-2012

Re: No Sent Folder resolved but no old sent messages

Welcome to the forums @Trevandpenny . Unfortunately, Plusnet will be unable to recover your sent items, as mail via a client that you send is not stored on the PN servers, only in your local folders.

John
Trevandpenny
Hooked
Posts: 7
Registered: ‎17-03-2019

Re: No Sent Folder resolved but no old sent messages

Hi

It's IMAP.

I'll be extremely disappointed if they can't recover them as a fault has obviously occurred somewhere - being asked to complete our Send information again surely points to an issue somewhere.

 

We did nothing with Thunderbird so i assumed it was an update or fault with Thunderbird / Plusnet.

jab1
Legend
Posts: 16,817
Thanks: 5,339
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Registered: ‎24-02-2012

Re: No Sent Folder resolved but no old sent messages

OK, as I never claim to be an expert on this, I'll bow out and let one of the more knowledgeable people see if there is a way round the problem.

@Townman , @MisterW ?Huh

John
Trevandpenny
Hooked
Posts: 7
Registered: ‎17-03-2019

Re: No Sent Folder resolved but no old sent messages

There's also a discussion on here from 2017 where several people lost their folders and " Bobpullen " ( Community Gaffer ) restored them

jab1
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Posts: 16,817
Thanks: 5,339
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Registered: ‎24-02-2012

Re: No Sent Folder resolved but no old sent messages

Something just occurred to me - can you see these sent items in webmail?

A link to the post you mentioned would be useful.

John
Trevandpenny
Hooked
Posts: 7
Registered: ‎17-03-2019

Re: No Sent Folder resolved but no old sent messages

jab1
Legend
Posts: 16,817
Thanks: 5,339
Fixes: 248
Registered: ‎24-02-2012

Re: No Sent Folder resolved but no old sent messages

OK, sorry you can't see them in webmail, but as you are using IMAP, have you exceeded your storage allowance, as the thread you linked to from 2017 referred to a situation where those concerned had gone over their mailbox size limits?

John
Trevandpenny
Hooked
Posts: 7
Registered: ‎17-03-2019

Re: No Sent Folder resolved but no old sent messages

No, it's not possible. Current Inbox size is 69mb, with emails going back to last year.

 

We couldn't have exceeded the 1gb limit and i've searched the Inbox for all emails from Plusnet and Plusnet Support - no warning email.

jab1
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Posts: 16,817
Thanks: 5,339
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Registered: ‎24-02-2012

Re: No Sent Folder resolved but no old sent messages

In that case, and as no-one else has replied to this thread, I'll tag @bobpullen for you. May be a while before he replies though, he's a busy man.

John
Townman
Superuser
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Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: No Sent Folder resolved but no old sent messages

Hi John,

We SUs do cruise this space at weekends, but not all of the time!

Thank you for picking up on the context of the linked thread, it was my first question - has this account (not just the mailbox) exceeded the 1GB allowance.  Archiving for exceeding the FUP cap is not on a mailbox by mailbox basis but by the sum usage of the account and despite of the words it is all mailboxes which "go".

However the OP does not mention all of the other folders has having vanished.

There is another possibility - that the mailbox has not been accessed for a number of months and has been archived, even though within the FUP.

The SENT (or Sent Items) folder unlike the INBOX is not a set predefined folder.  When a new email account is created and connected to by an IMAP client (for example webmail) and the first email is sent, if something like a 'Sent' folder does not exist, then one will be created.  Depending on the peculiarities of the client this will usually be names "Sent Items" or simply "Sent", similarly it can be located "under" the inbox folder or at the same level of the inbox folder.

Many clients will do a good job of looking for a pre-existing folder in the above locations with the varying names.  However others (for example the native "outlook" mail program on Win10 is particularly awkward) do not.  In such circumstances where more than one IMAP client is accessing the same mailbox, there can be confusion and multiple sent items folders.

 

In this instance before doing anything else, I would use the webmail client and go look at the folders and subfolders.  Look at the system folders and see if there are any folders which look like they might be "sent items" both at the same level as inbox and below inbox.  Also look at the system folder mapping.

It is possible that the client which cannot see the sent items folder might need to make the root folder path be \inbox

I have never quite got to the bottom of where / why  / where this is required, however what I have observed is that for some of my mailboxes accessed by Outlook 2016 some need the root folder path …. whilst others do not to list the special folders.

Thinking about special folders, can you see Trash / Junk / Deleted Items and Draft folders?

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

Trevandpenny
Hooked
Posts: 7
Registered: ‎17-03-2019

Re: No Sent Folder resolved but no old sent messages

We can see them now in Thunderbird but as i stated in the first post, only a few were visible initially.

All folders were visible in webmail but we were asked to input the Send information again.

 

The account has been accessed regularly since we signed up with Plusnet

jab1
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Posts: 16,817
Thanks: 5,339
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Registered: ‎24-02-2012

Re: No Sent Folder resolved but no old sent messages

@Townman  Kevin, I know you SU's aren't around all the time, and as the OP didn't state POP or IMAP, I didn't quite know quite  what could have been happening. When they stated IMAP, I was slightly out of my depth - never having used that protocol.

LOOKS like the problem is now solved, @Trevandpenny ?

John
Trevandpenny
Hooked
Posts: 7
Registered: ‎17-03-2019

Re: No Sent Folder resolved but no old sent messages

No - i was talking about the folders Kevin asked about; only those i mentioned in the first post were visible etc