where are email messages stored on computer?

Hi I have a small but important backup query on Windows XP. I several Email accounts on Mozilla including one Verizon account. According to the settings once I download the messages on my computer from Verizon, the email gets deleted from Verizon’s server. That’s fine. I use to take backup of my entire system regularly so that I wont miss anything.

Now the problem is recently my system got corrupted and hence I needed to reformat the entire drive and re-installed Windows XP. All my backups are stored on an External Hard Drive including emails. I have restored all my documents and all. But the problem is I don’t know where the email backups stored does. So I wanted to know from you guys from where can I restore the email back ups from my HDD?

Thank you.

Hello Daughtry, Just check the following article describing you E-mail Backups related to Outlook Express, Mozilla, Netscape, IncrediMail:
http://www.argentuma.com/backup/email-backup.html

By saying Mozilla, hope you mean to say Thunderbird Email client, right? If yes, then thunderbird emails are stored in the following folder along with profiles and other information:

C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default

xxxxxxxxx is a combination of lower case letters and numbers.

Hope it helps.

On my XP hard drive, I know that my IncrediMail emails are stored in the following location:

On the C drive under the folder Users, in the folder that has my name on it. Inside my folder, there is a folder that I cannot see called AppData. In that there is one called Local. Inside that is a folder called IM, in that a folder called Identies, and everything for IncrediMail (address book and emails) are stored in there.

I have the hard drive from my old XP computer connected to my new Vista computer. In IncrediMail on the Vista computer, I clicked on "File," then "Import," then "Messages" and selected the location as simply the folder under Users with my name on it. Incredimail then went through all the subfolders there and extracted all my old emails without my having to specify a more specific path. I haven't done this for my address book yet, but I was more interested in recovering the emails themselves. I don't see why it won't work for the address book, too.

The reason I know about these files although I cannot see them is, I opened Outlook Express, which I never use, and it has an application in it's program file folder called "IncrediConvert." If you click on that, it shows the entire path to the pertinent folders, but I haven't been able to see it using my Explore feature.

I hope this helps someone else recover their emails. It took me the better part of a day to figure this out!

--Sarah Clark

As a correction to my earlier message, I noticed that I said the folder with my name in it is a subfolder of the folder Users. I think it is actually inside the folder Documents & Settings. Sorry for any confusions.

--Sarah Clark