Thunderbird question (and weird Gmail tidbit)

[OneGrassRoot]

I have a LOT of emails in my Gmail account, but I'm still only at 44% capacity. Yesterday, without doing anything -- I wasn't even touching Gmail -- I noticed that the number of emails in my inbox was slowly decreasing. I didn't have filters or forwarding enabled.

I researched ways to back up Gmail and there are only a few. Thunderbird was already installed but not used, so I started downloading from Gmail to Thunderbird. I didn't see a way to set parameters as to what is downloaded, so I just kept clicking "get mail" and it would download in batches. I did that for hours, as I gradually lost half of my 10k emails (no idea which ones they are) over a seven-hour period.

I changed my Gmail password (changed all my passwords that are even referenced in Gmail) in case the account was compromised. At some point the "purging" stopped. I still don't know what emails are missing; nothing obvious is missing. My inbox reflects half the number of emails that were there yesterday, but the 44% full remains.

??? Seems this happens from time to time with Google, with no explanation, according to a search of forums. As Thunderbird was importing older emails, I also used Gmail Backup to save the last year's emails. I was frantic yesterday afternoon/evening...lol.

I still want to download everything remaining to Thunderbird but here's the thing:

As I said, I imported a LOT of emails from Gmail into Thunderbird yesterday. However, after a certain date, it appeared to be importing the emails still (the progress bar and indication of the imports, batch by batch, was still visible), but I can't see them in the inbox.

Any ideas? I have a lot more I need to keep importing, batch by batch (is there a way to get rid of the batch import limitation?), but need to know where they are once they're imported into Thunderbird.

:shrug:

Thanks. :)

[LiberalFighter]

1. Are your spam and trash folders empty on the server?

Are you looking for you gmail on your computer where your main email goes or to the account setup for your gmail download? It should be below your regular account with separate inbox and other folders.