mmm, food for thought here, thanks.
1) mails are not left on the server.
2) only one profile (user) on this installation.
3) we (she) has not tried another client, would rather not as it will lead to a discontinuous inbox on display.
4) we could try backing up and re-installing Eudora.
5) it may have gone wrong at the beginning of the year when she had a problem with 3 months mail disappearing into a different "recovery" file.
6) today, my thunderbird mail browser has started bringing 2 copies of some mails in, at different times. This may be a red herring as it has been going "not responding" and locking up the filing system on my Vista machine this week. Mouse and screen saver work but nothing else until a hard reset has been done.
MB I'll try this later, when the machine is not in use, Ta.
Rans6...