Windows Live Mail opens but won't load

Nikilet said:

Great! Here I thought I was in the clear. First I want to ask a question. If for some reason I can not use WLM, is there any way I would still be able to get into all the emails I have stored in a very extensive filing system or are they all going to be dead to me? If so, that would be kinda disastrous to me and I'm going to have to start going through things, copying and pasting to Open Office or something and setting up files.

Next, is there a simple set of instructions somewhere for changing to IMAP?

What I actually meant by this is if I can't use Windows Live Mail at all, even as IMAP, then is there some source by which I can still have access to all those emails in all those storage folders?

Your ISP deleted the Hotmail Account from WLM before checking that IMAP was working properly ? or you had a chance to save your emails ? They probably assumed all the email was on Outlook and would just sync back up , but that is not the case if you use Storage Folders. You need to move the messages out of the storage folders and back into the Main account so they will sync to IMAP Account. IMAP lets you use folders, POP3 does not.

I wonder if you can open a Hotmail sync'd account ( DeltaSync) again and it will find you locally stored Emails so you can rescue them?
You don't need to delete the IMAP account to do that , I ran them side by side until I was sure I had moved my stored email over.

Your Contacts should all be on Outlook.com (webmail) and safe , and they should sync back up as long as you are signed in , in WLM.

IMAP is EASY to setup for all your Accounts , have a look at this Post by SlartyBart and Myself.

New Outlook.com and Windows Essentials Live Mail (WLM)


There is likely someone smart person here who knows which folder all those emails are stored in , though I am unsure if you can access them again in Mail etc. except as .eml files.

Kbird said:

There is likely someone smart person here who knows which folder all those emails are stored in , though I am unsure if you can access them again in Mail etc. except as .eml files.

Doctor9fan said:

If you save the Windows Live Mail folder from here C:\Users\yourcomputername\AppData\Local\Microsoft\ then you can easily replace your accounts, folder incl storage folders when you install the program on a new computer or reinstall.
Just open WLMail to create the folder then navigate to the above link on your computer & delete the newly created folder & replace it with the saved version, when you next open Live mail you'll have to sign into all your email accounts but your emails will be there - I save this folder regularly.
If you check the folder the old account may still be there with your missing emails.

Just the Man Woman I was thinking of ...... thanks Doc 9 :)


*** I stand corrected :)

Doctor9fan said:

Female.

Ooops .... Sorry ! , Male avatar had me fooled

---saving my folder now for backup too , looks like WLM needs to be closed when you do it (files in use)

Doctor9fan said:

I'm a big Doctor Who fan especially Chris Eccleson as the 9th Doctor. :)
Ya made me smile Kbird. :)

Funny he doesn't hold quite the same Appeal for me

I had seen you post this info before and was hoping you'd see this thread ..... just trying to find the other thread from yesterday with the same issue.

Doctor9fan said:

If you save the Windows Live Mail folder from here C:\Users\yourcomputername\AppData\Local\Microsoft\ then you can easily replace your accounts, folder incl storage folders when you install the program on a new computer or reinstall.
Just open WLMail to create the folder then navigate to the above link on your computer & delete the newly created folder & replace it with the saved version, when you next open Live mail you'll have to sign into all your email accounts but your emails will be there - I save this folder regularly.
If you check the folder the old account may still be there with your missing emails.

That's what I've been doing with my POP3 account; save it on my external. But I didn't know if I could do that with IMAP. Also, from what I read and thought I understood, the folders aren't interchangeable. I tried dropping my saved storage folders from POP3 into the IMAP account and it didn't work. So I recreated each and every folder (and I have lots of them) from my POP3 account in my in my IMAP account. Then I went into the POP3 folders, selected the emails in them and copied each to it's corresponding folder in IMAP. Then I made a backup of those new IMAP folders. So I pray that's going to work. I have two computers and what I would like to do now is change the other account to IMAP also, hopefully copy these new folders I've created into that account, and then sync the two accounts. Can I do that?

In my experience WLM does not allow you to drag and drop folders , only messages , so in the past I have recreated the Folders like you and then drag and dropped the messages between Folders too.

If you save the whole WLM Folder as DocFan9 said it would be in Pop3 Folders so saving it back likely just recreates the Pop3 setup , so you may need to continue what you are doing since you want it to be IMAP from this point forward.

Once you have it all setup as IMAP on one Computer , you should be able to setup an IMAP Account on the 2nd computer and it should sync automatically to that new IMAP Account. It maybe quicker to Save the new IMAP Live Folder on Computer 1 as DocFan9 said and copy that folder to the new computer though, if the file is really large it may save you Internet bandwidth charges too? .