I recently made a system image backup on my Notebook which, at the time, had Windows 7 Home Premium as the OS. I subsequently replaced Home Premium with Home Basic. I do not know if this is relevant to the problem I now have which is this:
I had a number of eM Client Local Folders with emails therein which I wished to retain and which were included, so I believed, in the system image backup. As I wanted to make sure they were still in my backup I opened the VHD folder and located the eM Client folder within which I found a Mail Client folder. On opening the latter folder it brought me straight into my up-to-the-minute emails but there is no sign of the Local Folders I had assumed were backed up. I am now very concerned that my backup folders are deleted.
Could someone kindly tell me where I might be going adrift?
Hello Gordon, not quite sure what you’re referring to, what folder did you backup or move from your previous installation backup? Your database content is saved in the local user/AppData/Roaming folder, which if you backup using the built-in backup tool should contain both your account information as well as your local folder data.
If you haven’t moved this folder try to replace it using the backed up version, however note this is not a supported method of restoring your data, in order to restore from a backup make sure to use the built-in backup/restore tool.
Hidden files are not related to local folders displaying in eM Client, however the option may be disabled in Tools > Settings > General > Show local folders.
I have have been looking closer to what I have in terms of eM Client files and folders. I now conclude the Mail Client file I referred to is the .exe or whatever file that launches eM Client.
In my C: drive I can find the following:-
C:\ Users\Gordon\App Data\Roaming\eM Client These are mainly DAT files.
C:\Program Files(x86)\eM Client These are mainly DLL files.
C:\Users\Gordon\My Documents\eM Client This folder is empty at present. I suspect this is because I have chosen not to use the eM Client (5 day ?) backup tool.
In my System Image backup I find similar files/folders except that in the Documents\eM Client folder I do have 5 compressed folders, each containing 20 DAT files, together another folder containing DAT files. I think the compressed folders were the final 5 days of backed up files made at the time I was using the eM Client backup tool.
I am confident that, within the System Image backup, there are files under the eM Client headings which contain my Local Folder emails. My problem is to identify the particular file(s) and then workout how to open it / them. Somebody out there, I hope, can pinpoint the Local Folder files for me and guide me how to open them, particularly if they are DAT or DLL files.
Hello again, unfortunately local folder items nor your IMAP folders content messages are accessible outside of eM Client, all your data is saved within multiple database files in the AppData/Roaming folder, you can access the files in a text file, however I do not recommend adjust these files as it may result in database corruption.
Your Documents eM Client folder should be used for backups if enabled as you suggested.
Thanks Paul for the bad news which, as I understand, means I would have to restore the whole of the System Image in order to extract my up-to-date Local Folders. As I am unsure what this would do to my present OS; probably overwrite it and this would be one extra disaster.
On the subject of the eM Client back up tool, does this back up Local Folders? If so, can I not at least access the final eM C. backup, which seems to be in Documents within in the System Image backup? If so, I could at least get at some of my older Local Folders mails. I have in mind copying the Documents backup files onto a pen drive and loading them into eM Client on my C: partition so they might open. What do you think?
As I suggested, your local folders are saved within your eM Client database, if you have your database backed up, you can restore the database including your local folders in File > Backup/Restore.
Many thanks Paul. A restore from backup would not have been much help to me at this time because I had stopped doing eM Client backups some months ago, so any restoration from the Documents folder would have been very incomplete.
However I was able to copy and paste the contents of the eM Client folder from my recent System Image backup and by this method was able to get back, more or less, everything I wanted. As you will know, it was the eM C. folder in C:\Users\Gordon\App Data\Roaming that did the trick. Not the one in Program files.
I have now reverted to making eM Client backups so hopefully I won’t have a similar problem in the future.
Thanks once again for all your help.
Glad it works, please make sure to let us know if you come across this issue again or if you come across any other issues or questions about the application, we’ll be happy to help.
