Transferring Thunderbird

I have purchased a new pc with win8.1 and I will be installing
thunderbird onto it. I currently have a win7 pc with my existing
thunderbird on it. Is there a easy way to move it from one to the other?
Since I will be wiping this system before selling it I want to be able
to save all the e-mails that I currently have. Any help would be
appreciated as always.

Drew

Drew wrote:

I have purchased a new pc with win8.1 and I will be installing
thunderbird onto it. I currently have a win7 pc with my existing
thunderbird on it. Is there a easy way to move it from one to the other?
Since I will be wiping this system before selling it I want to be able
to save all the e-mails that I currently have. Any help would be
appreciated as always.

Are you using IMAP to connect to the e-mail server(s)? If so, a newly
installed e-mail client also using IMAP will see whatever you have up on
the server. This is another advantage of IMAP: after recovery or for
new client installs, the client has all the e-mails that are up on the
server. IMAP is designed to be accessed by multiple clients with all of
them synchronizing their content with the server, and some of those
clients might be making a first-time connection to that server. With
IMAP, the server is your backup.

That won't carry over your customizations of Thunderbird. For that, you
need to copy over your profile folder. Folks in the Thunderbird support
newsgroup would know how to do that (or you do a search beforehand, like
http://www.bing.com/search?q=thunder...ofile%20folder or
http://www.bing.com/search?q=thunder...ate%20profile). The
Thunderbird group is on Mozilla's NNTP server, so connect your NNTP
client to news.mozilla.org (no login required) and go to the
mozilla.thunderbird.support newsgroup.

"Drew" wrote in message
...
I have purchased a new pc with win8.1 and I will be installing thunderbird
onto it. I currently have a win7 pc with my existing thunderbird on it. Is
there a easy way to move it from one to the other? Since I will be wiping
this system before selling it I want to be able to save all the e-mails
that I currently have. Any help would be appreciated as always.



Put this on both machines.

MozBackup
http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/

After you backup TB on the Win7 machine, copy the backup folder to the new
machine and do a restore. TB should look identical to the original.
--

~Bruce

On 9/28/2014 7:03 AM, Drew wrote:
I have purchased a new pc with win8.1 and I will be installing
thunderbird onto it. I currently have a win7 pc with my existing
thunderbird on it. Is there a easy way to move it from one to the other?
Since I will be wiping this system before selling it I want to be able
to save all the e-mails that I currently have. Any help would be
appreciated as always.

Drew


Questions about Thunderbird are best asked at the
mozilla.support.thunderbird newsgroup on the news.mozilla.org server.
Access to the server is free and does not require a login or password.

There are other newsgroups for Mozilla-based applications on the
news.mozilla.org server. See
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/forums/ for a list.

--
David E. Ross

The Crimea is Putin's Sudetenland.
The Ukraine will be Putin's Czechoslovakia.
See http://www.rossde.com/editorials/edtl_PutinUkraine.html.

Drew wrote:
I have purchased a new pc with win8.1 and I will be installing
thunderbird onto it. I currently have a win7 pc with my existing
thunderbird on it. Is there a easy way to move it from one to the other?
Since I will be wiping this system before selling it I want to be able
to save all the e-mails that I currently have. Any help would be
appreciated as always.

Drew

Install Thunderbird on the new PC.

Thunderbird has a "Profile Manager". The new (empty) Profile will
be assigned an eight character random name, and it will be
identified as "Default".

If you copy the entire random-named-profile from the old machine,
put it in the same profile folder, at the same level as the
empty profile on the new install, you'll have two profiles
to work with. By editing the profiles.ini file, you can tell
Thunderbird there is more than one profile. So you might
have two folders,

BX56Q7X8
ABCD1234

and they'd then be at the same level. And easier to
find later.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb...tiple-profiles

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe" -p

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-tb

When I'd tried this stuff, I didn't always find the
documentation all that clear, but I hope that's enough
to get you started.

*******

This is the "profiles.ini" file on my current (WinXP) C:.
I seem to remember having this file contain more than one
profile, but I don't know which OS install that is on.

C:\Documents and Settings\MyUserName\Application Data\Thunderbird\profiles.ini

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=Profiles/1234abcd.default

On my Windows 8 disk, this is the setup. Don't
know how this got this way. I think this is the
copied profile, stored in my Downloads folder
(where I store a lot of junk).

Y:\Users\MyUserName\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\pr ofiles.ini

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=0

[Profile0]
Name=Default User
IsRelative=0
Path=C:\Users\MyUserName\Downloads\1234abcd.defaul t
Default=1

The "IsRelative" is 0, if you specify an absolute path
for the profile folder.

And I can't figure out what the StartWithLastProfile parameter
does there. The first configuration is a "non-copied" setup,
while the second one is a "copied" setup. I don't know
if that was needed to get the Profile Manager started,
or why they're different. As far as I can remember, right
now, both older and newer Thunderbirds start, without showing
any Profile Manager selection process. Just the one profile,
selected and used, is evident.

OK, this one is from C: on my Windows 7 laptop, with copied profile.
(I keep the .vhd backup file from 2012 on my current computer,
for easy access with 7ZIP. So I didn't have to dig out the
laptop to get this.)

C:\Users\MyUserName\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\pr ofiles.ini

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1 --- likely to make a difference...

[Profile0]
Name=default --- assigned default by installer
IsRelative=1
Path=Profiles/5678efgh.default --- empty one (as installed)

[Profile1]
Name=Firstname Lastname --- my imported profile
IsRelative=1
Path=Profiles/1234abcd.default --- folder stored next to empty one
Default=1 --- maybe this is how it keeps track?

It's all very confusing, and you'll either get to fix this
via the Profile Manager, or, with Notepad. It might be
faster to just edit yourself a profiles.ini to lash it
together.

HTH,
Paul

On 09/28/2014 10:03 AM, Drew wrote:
I have purchased a new pc with win8.1 and I will be installing
thunderbird onto it. I currently have a win7 pc with my existing
thunderbird on it. Is there a easy way to move it from one to the other?
Since I will be wiping this system before selling it I want to be able
to save all the e-mails that I currently have. Any help would be
appreciated as always.

Drew
I simply load Thunderbird, and don't run it.
Then in C:\user\name\appdata (a hidden directory) there is a
Thunderbird folder.
Copy that entire folder to the new machine, same location being win7 & 8
directories are similar.

Run thunderbird and you'll have all your files and folders and setup and
extensions.

I never miss a beat every time I reload.

Not that this is significant or true, but that profile directory is
typically 8 chars .default, and my first name initial + last name just
happen to be 8 chars. So I renamed it bwhatever.default years back.
So I like to keep that config. A vanity thing I guess. Thus this
works to not only keep that identity but all the data.

Bruce Hagen wrote:
"Drew" wrote in message
...
I have purchased a new pc with win8.1 and I will be installing
thunderbird onto it. I currently have a win7 pc with my existing
thunderbird on it. Is there a easy way to move it from one to the
other? Since I will be wiping this system before selling it I want to
be able to save all the e-mails that I currently have. Any help would
be appreciated as always.



Put this on both machines.

MozBackup
http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/

After you backup TB on the Win7 machine, copy the backup folder to the
new machine and do a restore. TB should look identical to the original.

+1

--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps

On 29/09/2014 07:14, . . .winston wrote:
Bruce Hagen wrote:
"Drew" wrote in message
...
I have purchased a new pc with win8.1 and I will be installing
thunderbird onto it. I currently have a win7 pc with my existing
thunderbird on it. Is there a easy way to move it from one to the
other? Since I will be wiping this system before selling it I want to
be able to save all the e-mails that I currently have. Any help would
be appreciated as always.



Put this on both machines.

MozBackup
http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/

After you backup TB on the Win7 machine, copy the backup folder to the
new machine and do a restore. TB should look identical to the original.

+1

+1 from me

I have purchased a new pc with win8.1 and I will be installing thunderbird
onto it. I currently have a win7 pc with my existing thunderbird on it. Is
there a easy way to move it from one to the other? Since I will be wiping
this system before selling it I want to be able to save all the e-mails that
I currently have. Any help would be appreciated as always.

Drew

Go to Mozilla newsgroup.
news.mozilla.org
mozilla.support.thunderbird

and ask there. they know how to do this.

On 29/09/2014 18:36, Bob H wrote:
On 29/09/2014 07:14, . . .winston wrote:
Bruce Hagen wrote:
"Drew" wrote in message
...
I have purchased a new pc with win8.1 and I will be installing
thunderbird onto it. I currently have a win7 pc with my existing
thunderbird on it. Is there a easy way to move it from one to the
other? Since I will be wiping this system before selling it I want to
be able to save all the e-mails that I currently have. Any help would
be appreciated as always.



Put this on both machines.

MozBackup
http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/

After you backup TB on the Win7 machine, copy the backup folder to the
new machine and do a restore. TB should look identical to the original.

+1

+1 from me

+1
And another one

Drew wrote:
I have purchased a new pc with win8.1 and I will be installing
thunderbird onto it. I currently have a win7 pc with my existing
thunderbird on it. Is there a easy way to move it from one to the other?
Since I will be wiping this system before selling it I want to be able
to save all the e-mails that I currently have. Any help would be
appreciated as always.

Drew

This is what I have done.

Copy the the thunderbird folder

C:\Users\name\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird

from windows 7 to windows 8.1 BEFORE installing thunderbird.

If you then install Thunderbird it will be identical to your
windows 7

HS

On 10/1/2014 3:12 AM, HS wrote:


Drew wrote:
I have purchased a new pc with win8.1 and I will be installing
thunderbird onto it. I currently have a win7 pc with my existing
thunderbird on it. Is there a easy way to move it from one to the other?
Since I will be wiping this system before selling it I want to be able
to save all the e-mails that I currently have. Any help would be
appreciated as always.

Drew

This is what I have done.

Copy the the thunderbird folder

C:\Users\name\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird

from windows 7 to windows 8.1 BEFORE installing thunderbird.

If you then install Thunderbird it will be identical to your
windows 7

HS
I would recommend you do the opposite. Move the Thunderbird folder
after you install Thunderbird. With different operating systems and
version Thunderbird has moved the working folder around.

By loading Thunderbird first you can see where the new install placed
its working folder, and then copy the old folder to the same place as
the new.

| And I can't figure out what the StartWithLastProfile parameter
| does there.

I'd guess that's probably 1 or 0, with 0 meaning that
TBird will always open to the default profile and 1 meaning
it will open to whatever profile you used last.

Your method seems like an awfully lot of work and bloat
for no benefit if one can just put the old profile folder
into the new location. If one can't find out what the location
should be, TBird could be installed and then uninstalled
to find where the profile folders are.

It's really a shame that they've made such a convoluted
mess of it all. I use OE and it's similar. One has to learn
obscure tricks in order to have a dependable backup.
.....So few people can figure it out. ....So they get
frustrated and sign up for gmail. It's really very strange.
Browser bookmarks and email are arguably the most common
things to need backup, yet software makers haven't provided
a simple, clear way to do either. And if they're going to insist
on having settings per-user, whether one wants that or not,
they could at least be consistent and put them in a subfolder
of My Documents, where they at least *might* get backed up.

Mayayana wrote:
| And I can't figure out what the StartWithLastProfile parameter
| does there.

I'd guess that's probably 1 or 0, with 0 meaning that
TBird will always open to the default profile and 1 meaning
it will open to whatever profile you used last.

Your method seems like an awfully lot of work and bloat
for no benefit if one can just put the old profile folder
into the new location. If one can't find out what the location
should be, TBird could be installed and then uninstalled
to find where the profile folders are.

It's really a shame that they've made such a convoluted
mess of it all. I use OE and it's similar. One has to learn
obscure tricks in order to have a dependable backup.
....So few people can figure it out. ....So they get
frustrated and sign up for gmail. It's really very strange.
Browser bookmarks and email are arguably the most common
things to need backup, yet software makers haven't provided
a simple, clear way to do either. And if they're going to insist
on having settings per-user, whether one wants that or not,
they could at least be consistent and put them in a subfolder
of My Documents, where they at least *might* get backed up.



I'm reporting a method I've used.

I'm not familiar with "mozbackup".

I agree the copying of a folder to an equivalent place on the
new OS, before installing Thunderbird, is a clever and good idea
for a test. As long as you copy the old profiles.ini file as well
as the randomly named folder, the relative (versus absolute) addressing
in there should work out. The reason I do it my way, the scenario
is "I'll be trapped for several days in a particular OS",
Thunderbird is already there, and I'm basically taking
a temporary snapshot so I can read USENET with up-to-date
threads.

Paul

In message , Paul
writes





I'm not familiar with "mozbackup".

Mozbackup avoids having to know which profile to use etc, and simply
'works'. It's also supposed to work for Seamonkey (which I only briefly
played with), but when I tried it, I recall that it didn't really seem
to work properly. [Don't know about the other Mozilla products.]




--
Ian