Emails are gone

[backsidewalkaround]

backsidewalkaround last edited by

Hello,
I'm using Opera Mail 1.0 and I have the following problem with my Emails. I'd like to keep all Emails that I don't delete. I get the mail from my providers via Pop3. To my knowledge that means that all Emails are saved as a local copy to my computer.
I use the option "keep a copy on the server" to be able to access the Emails with other options. All this works well, ...

BUT: After a period of about 1 and 1/2 years the content of the Emails is gone.

My question is: How can I prevent this?

Thank you in advance,

Best Regards, Rolf

[A Former User]

A Former User last edited by

Gone from the local copies or from the copies on the server?

[backsidewalkaround]

backsidewalkaround last edited by

Thank you for your reply. The local copies are gone. Also I have set Opera to delete the mails from the server after 730 days, but this is not the reason for my problem, because the time of deletion doesn't coincide.
I need to have the mails deleted from the server, because otherwise I will get to the limit of my free mail provider.

About the local copies: The empty shell of an email exists infinitely, I have mails dating back to 2003. Only the content is gone.

[burnout426]

burnout426 Volunteer last edited by

If Opera Mail is messed up, here's how you fix it.

First, see "Menu -> About Opera" for file/folder locations. Then...

"Menu -> settings -> import and export -> export Opera contacts".

"Menu -> settings -> import and export -> export Opera Feeds List".

Close down Opera and rename the "mail" folder to "mailold".

Delete wand.dat and opcert6.dat.

Delete operaprefs.ini (not operaprefs_default.ini). If you use a custom "mail" folder location, don't delete operaprefs.ini. Instead, edit it with a text editor and remove all sections except the "[Mail]" section. Under that section, remove all lines execept for the "Mail Root Directory" line. Make sure the path for the Mail Root Directory" is correct.

Start Opera and use "Menu -> Mail and chat accounts -> add" to add all your mail accounts. For Opera Mail specifically, you're going to get an import dialog on startup. Do not import anything and instead choose to create accounts. In each account wizard, enter your username and password so Opera syncs with the server and fetch messages for the account when setup is complete. Do not use low-bandwidth mode.

For each of your POP accounts, goto "Menu -> settings -> import and export -> import mail -> import generic mbox -> add folder" and point it to the "mailold\store\accountN" folder where N is the number for the coresponding account as seen in "mailold\accounts.ini". Set "import into" to the corresponding POP account that you created. In accounts.ini, you can look at the email address or incoming and outgoing server lines under each account section to see which account is which.

Once imported, if you have any duplicates (a copy fetched from the POP server (that'll be in "All Messages/Unread") and an imported copy), delete the imported copy and keep the fetched copy.

Repeat the process for other POP accounts.

Import your feeds and contacts. For already-fetched feed messages that are no longer on the feed page, you can't restore those as feed messages, but you can use the generic mbox importer to import them into a new pop account. It'll be a POP account that doesn't connect to any server. It will just contain those feed messages in an unsorted manner.

Readjust any global mail preferences and each account's preferences.

Readjust your feed update intervals.

Create your labels again. For labels that don't have rules, for messages that were in those labels, select them and drag them back to those labels.

For a quicker way to get your labels back, once the new Opera Mail mail folder is set up and you close Opera, you can copy the index sections from the mailold/index.ini to the new index.ini. You just have to renumber them to follow along with the existing indexes in the new index.ini. You then need to update the index count at the top of index.ini to represent the new index count. Then, copy "mailold/autofilter" to the new mail folder.

[backsidewalkaround]

backsidewalkaround last edited by

Hi Burnout426,
thank you for your detailled instructions. I will probably need to follow them, although I'm still hoping there is an easier way like turn a switch in the "**.ini" or sth. like that.
Since there probably isn't I will most likely try your way in a couple of days.
Thanks again, Rolf