When I open thunderbird ... all the accounts that I had downloaded from different gmail accounts have disappeared I need help thank you

Question

A while back I downloaded about 15 gmail accounts so that i could cancel the gmail accounts ...
all was working fine ... but recently when I started thunderbird ... there was only 1 of the downloaded accounts remaining ... and even it was empty ..
I need some help in finding all the lost accounts and emails
Thank you

Answer 1

Assuming you are talking about imap accounts.
This is the process you would use:
You synchronised those accounts to download a copy to your computer.
Then you stopped the synchronising, so that the accounts did not keep updated to be the same as the server.
Then in Offline mode you would move all of those accounts emails into Local Folders, so that you would be able to delete the imap email accounts and keep all emails on your computer.
One possibility:
If the imap email accounts were still able to synch with the server and you had stopped the mail account, it may have done a final synch with an empty server, thus deleting all the emails to match the server. Synchronised imap accounts keep updated to match what the server folders contain.
First check to see if there are any emails in your Profile folder.
make hidden files and folders visible.
* http://kb.mozillazine.org/Show_hidden_files_and_folders
In Thunderbird:
* Help > Troubleshooting information
* click on 'show folder' button
A new window opens showing your profile folder.
* click on 'ImapMail' folder
Do you see a list of your imap mail accounts?
If yes. click on an imap account name
Can you see eg: Inbox (not Inbox.msf) or any other folders you created which show as files with no extension - not *.msf?
If yes, do they have a decent size?
you can open these files using eg: Notepad to see if emails are listed.
If you can see only one imap mail account, check to see if there are any emails as previously described.
Then check to see if there is more than one Profile.
Click on the 'Profiles' in address line...see image below.
In my example I only have one xxxxxxxx.default account and it is open on that Profile.
If there is more than one, select the other Profile and check again for the imap mail accounts as previously described.
Please report back:
Did you stop synchronising those imap mail accounts?
Did you move a copy of all emails into Local Folders?
Did you stop/remove the mail accounts on the server?
Do you have one or more Profiles?
Do you see the imap mail accounts in the Profile folder?
Do you see any files containing the emails?
Additional:
After synchronising, downloading, stop synchronising.
Did you create a backup of the Profile folder?