Suddenly I've lost old emails in inbox, despite proper accountsetting. How to get them back?

Question

TB worked fine, until today. I did not change any settings, not in TB and not at my emailserver. Still, my inbox now displays only the emails on the server; these are proper synchronised.
My inbox does not display anymore the older emails I keep in my inbox. They are not in the Bin, not deleted by me, not in Archives. How is this possible?

Answer 1

re: ''Still, my inbox now displays only the emails on the server; these are proper synchronised.''
As you have 'synchronised' the folder, I assume you use an IMAP mail account.
Please confirm that you use IMAP or Pop.
IMAP mail accounts see a remote view of the subscribed folders that are on the server.
So if your webmail account only shows eg: 10 emails in Inbox and in Thunderbird you only see those 10 emails in the account Inbox then nothing is wrong in that they are the same.
Are you saying that the emails were deleted off the server, so that they are also deleted in thunderbird?
check: Tools > Activity manager
Does it say any anything about deleting loads of emails?
Do you know if compacting occured?
One possibility:
Your Inbox folder was corrupted and then the folder was compacted either manually or automatically.
It removed all 'marked as deleted; emails, but as the folder was corrupted, Tb could not determine where the 'marked as deleted' email ended and therefore may have deleted good emails.
If this occured then there is no way to get them back unless you had a backup of your emails.
It is advised that you keep an Inbox for incoming new mail and move good emails into suitable folders for organising and compact the folder on a regular basis.
See info on keeping a healthy Thunderbird:
* http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keep_it_working_-_Thunderbird
Info on compacting - what it does and why it is important:
* http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders