Lost all mails in eM Client

Two days ago, I installed the eM Client app for Windows and ran into a BIG problem.

The installation went smoothly, as did adding my MS-Outlook Mail account. I then proceeded to import a PST file into a local folder. All went well, and I had over 2000 mails stored in my new eM Client app.

Since, by default, eM Client stores the database directory here:

C:\Username\my user name\AppData\Roaming\eM Client for Microsoft Store

I decided to change the directory to a more convenient location. There is a dialog in the program specifically for this purpose under Settings. The program also explicitly states in the dialog that changing the directory will NOT copy the data to the new location. This must be done manually.

I created a new folder here: C:\Users\my user name\Documents\eMClient.

I then quit eM Client so that I could copy the files to the new location.

To my amazement, the default directory was gone! I started to search for it everywhere but it was nowhere to be found. In short, the 2000 mails were apparently never really stored. I restarted eM Client, and, as I expected, no mails and no Outlook account.

Yesterday, I uninstalled and reinstalled the eM Client app and added my Outlook Mail account again. Inside the aforementioned dialog box for changing the location, the program again displayed the default location in my Roaming directory. This time I clicked the Apply button at the bottom, then quit the program and looked for the directory using the Windows Explorer. Again, the folder was not there! The mails from my Outlook account were still in my eM Client, but there was no database directory at the default location!

Instead of fiddling further, I decided to uninstall the program. What the heck is going on here?

Luckily, all my information is also stored in-line. However, I have learned the hard way that before any upgrade of emclient, an update of any data not stored elsewhere is needed. It seems like the development process for emclient has severe quality issues and they are throwing out untested software with a lot of bugs leaving to their clients to alfa and betatest their software. This is a pity since the software when working is great. So, when updating in the future, make sure to at least make a backup of your settings and preferably of all other data as well.

In my business, we nowadays wait 3 months before we install updates of emclient and then check this forum before trying the new version out on a non-operational computer. I would recommend that to any users using emclient for professional purposes.

Best of luck!

Yes I wouldn’t recommend changing the database location (after installing EMC) or you would normally have issues.

The only thing I change after installation is the “Backup folder location” for the .zip file.