Not Able to Rebuild Thunderbird msf files on Windows Vista

I am not able to rebuild the msf files of Thunderbird. It is installed on a Windows Vista system. I had migrated to another system and so copied all the files from old system. There we not errors and everything went well while copying. Later on after migration when I try to rebuild the index the system freezes. There are more than 500 emails in the inbox and it is quiet important to get all those mails working. Luckily I had not formatted the old system. So I have some time for R&D. I need help to deal with the issue. How to rebuild all msf files properly and if that fails that what can be the issues behind that.

What I know that those files are corrupted. And because of which you are facing that issue. Better try to get back those emails one more time and then check again. I think those file are not properly copied.

For easy usage I will recommend to use a tool called as Mozbackup. It is a small utility that can be used for your web browser or mail client for backup purpose. It is also quiet easy to use and configure. Mozbackup helps you to copy content from Firefox, Thunderbird, etc. You can backup and restore the same quite easily. The download size is very less and above all this applications is free. You do not need to pay to buy it. Along with backup it provides you a easy restore button also. You can click on that choose the application from below table and then click on Next. It detects the installation directory of Thunderbird automatically. The last option that you will get on this utility is choosing the things you need to restore. It is possible to restore everything you want. I found this utility very helpful. It is very easy to use and configure also. You can keep this installed in your system. It is not resource intensive.

The issue looks with rebuilding of .msf files. You can delete that and launch the client to restore it. That is the most easiest way. I think your mails are not corrupted. Keep a backup and then only play with the settings.

There is a way to restore those files. There are chances that the files are not corrupted but by rebuilding the index can show you all the emails in the software. For that you will need to take some measure which are risky. So I hope you have the backup of your all mails before doing this. Exit Thunderbird first and then go in the mail folder which in your user profile. You can find that under documents settings > application data somewhere. Try to find that on your own. Inside that you can see the folder that has your emails. Open that and delete the .msf file. Relaunch the emails client. It will try to rebuild the index file and I hope it will list all the existing message. In Vista the files lies under Application data > Thunderbird > User Profiles. It is recommended that you must compact your emails folders at a regular time interval so that it became easier for you to transfer then wherever you want and the same also is not corrupted.

It is recommended not to compact the folders if files are corrupted. They can cause severe issue in your system. If you are facing the corrupt file error try to re-overwrite the files from old system.

If you had already compacted your inbox folder then there are no chances that you can undo the chances. To corrupt mails folders compacting is not recommended. Check that in your old system. What I know that once the file is corrupted there are not ways to recover the same back again. I had the same issue with Thunderbird. I was getting the msf rebuild error and tried a number of things to restore the same. But that did not worked. I also tried to copy and paste those files manually. What wrong I did is compacted the folder and things messed out there. If those were not compacted I would have chance to rebuild the msf files. I think your mailbox is corrupted. Try some third party utility to backup and restore your emails. If that works then that can help you out or there is no way to fix the same. The quick fix is by deleting the .msf files and then launching Thunderbird to rebuild your index files.

It has happened to before some months when I lost my 400 messages. There were not way to get it back. Luckily I had used Mozbackup some time before. I lost all the recent mails but older were left.

There should be some kind of disaster recovery mechanism installed on this emails clients. I had seen that all of them are one and the same. Like Outlook. I have around 1500+ emails in that. But if they are lost they are gone for ever. The most I can do is keep the backup of pst files. They are too slow to copy and when I launch outlook my entire pc freezes up. That can be due to the excess mail loads. I tried to search some tools that can help to take mails backup. But there were no effective tools. That is reason I made the settings in such a way that a copies lies on the email server. That is quiet more helpful.

Even I agree that rebuilding msf does not helps to extent. I had tried that a number of times. The mails can be recovered only if had not compacted it. The other other compressed mail folders.