I can't see e-mail messages on my local folder disk location. Paranoid.

Question

I'm switching from POP to IMAP and in the process am trying to archive lots of messages in not-very-active topics/folders to my Local Folders. This all seems to work _great_. My messages are archived just where I expect them to be, and I can see them _in Thunderbird_.
But, when I go to the location of the local folders shown by "browse" in account settings for Local Folders, I see only .sbd folders. These sometimes have sub-folders for _some_ of the sub-folders in my local folders structure (but not all). I see no messages. In some cases properties indicates that the folder has a substantial size.
BUT, I want to be able to walk away with my e-mail should something go wrong. Where are my e-mails? How can I configure T-bird so that I can be comfortable that they will survive the demise of T-bird, or some other misfortune (assuming that I back them up.)
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The Account Settings Local folders Browse button is designed to locate only the Folder where it should be pointing, so that Local Folders knows where to save Local Folders folders and emails, enabling you to select the folder which is usually set by default and unless there is a specific issue, you should not need to change it. It is not an access to Profile folders. All Files are not displayed in that view because you cannot select them to be a suitable folder.
The second method via Help > Troublshooting 'Show Folder' button displays the Profile folder name contents and therefore will show all files and folders. If you ever want to manually backup your profile, this is one method of locating the Profile name folder.