you need Version31 or earlier. Something happened along the way to the 38 release and the import turned into a crash. So it is disabled until it gets fixed.

What language version would you be needing?

I'm using the English version.

Will installing 31 over 38 allow me to keep all my settings, add-ons, etc.?

Presumably I could downgrade to 31, do the import, and then install 38 again?

English US version can be downloaded from here http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/31.8.0/win32/en-US/

The downgrade will probably mess with Lightning. But as it is just to import and then upgrade again it will not matter as reverting to V38 will undo the mess up and bring add-ons back into an all compatible with Thunderbird state..

Ok so now how do I backup the emails already in Thunderbird?

The change of version does not change your mails. They will be there as they are now.

To backup. Close Thunderbird In the start menu type %appdata% and press enter. Explorer will open in the appdata\remote folder which contains a folder called Thunderbird. Drag that folder to a USB drive. Backup complete.

Matt said

English US version can be downloaded from here http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/31.8.0/win32/en-US/ The downgrade will probably mess with Lightning. But as it is just to import and then upgrade again it will not matter as reverting to V38 will undo the mess up and bring add-ons back into an all compatible with Thunderbird state..

Thanks Matt! Everything worked exactly as you described. I'm back on 38 with all my imported emails. Loving Thunderbird!

Matt said

you need Version31 or earlier. Something happened along the way to the 38 release and the import turned into a crash. So it is disabled until it gets fixed.

This was VERY useful. However ... I've spent the best part of 2 days trying to get this to work based on various suggestions on the web. Rather than graying-out a bug, would it not be possible to change the link so that it provides a user-friendly message to say something like: "Please revert back to version 31 or earlier ... we are working on fixing a bug in this version"?

You are right, it would have been preferable, but disabling an option takes about 10 minutes and can be done very very late in the release process. Anything involving words requires much earlier action so that the translation folk get a chance to do their thing. A string freeze occurs weeks out from release.

In this case we became aware of the issue at the last minute. So the choice was leave it as it was and have the program crash, or disable it. I think we made the right choice. Just not the best choice (fix it) or the second best (your option).

I have not looked in on the bag for a while, but the intent was to fix it for the upcoming 38.2 release. I do not really know if they got there yet though.

Thank you for your answer. I've only just changed from Outlook to Thunderbird, which is why it took me so long to find your post. I now see that the 38.1 release notes clearly shows the bug. It would be very useful if the release issues were displayed on installation (or update): not so much for current users, but for new users who don't know about this forum or would not think to check the release notes in the Help menu.

BTW ... I'm absolutely delighted with Thunderbird ... it's a great program and it has allowed me to move away completely from Microsoft Office (which is also good, but now very expensive).

I hope you have found add-ons..... that is in my opinion the best part of Thunderbird. Think of something it does not do and someone somewhere has probably already written an add-on to do it.

Some of the ones that I think get asked about most are here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/collections/Matt_au/a/?page=1

Many thanks again ... yes, the add-ons are brilliant. Right now I'm using the ThunderBrowse which means I can reply to you right from the notification email ... great!

Just watch that one... if it ever gets disabled for any reason, links just stop working altogether. Not an issue if you know. A huge time waster if you do not.

Thank you. I can see that there some funnies in Thunderbrowse. For example, if I go to Google by typing the URL in the address bar and do a search (Chrome as the default): - if Chrome is running the search results are shown in a tab in the Chrome browser (which is pretty confusing, especially if Chrome is minimised). - if Chrome is not running, nothing happens when the search is entered; to get the results I need to click on the Go button (so the search url is correctly put into the address bar).

Still ... it is very nice to be able to view email links directly from the email in the same window!

how come I have to have outlook installed to open these emails. Which I do not have installed and really don't want it installed.

nwrensch said

how come I have to have outlook installed to open these emails. Which I do not have installed and really don't want it installed.

Because Thunderbird has no idea about Outlooks storage system. It asks Outlook for the mail, calendars and contacts. No Outlook. No conversation.

atlcr said

I am trying to switch from Outlook 2007 to Thunderbird. Everything is great so far, but I need to import my old emails from Outlook. When I go to Tools>Import>Mail I get options for Eudora, Outlook, and Outlook Express. The options for Eudora and Outlook are greyed out. The option for Outlook Express is available, but that's not even a option for me since I am using Windows 7. I read some articles and they noted that you must still have Outlook installed and set as the default mail client. I have made sure that Outlook is set as the default mail client but the import option is still greyed out. I have tried restarting both Outlook and Thunderbird. I have also tried importing with Outlook open and closed. Any help would be appreciated.

Matt said

English US version can be downloaded from here http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/31.8.0/win32/en-US/ The downgrade will probably mess with Lightning. But as it is just to import and then upgrade again it will not matter as reverting to V38 will undo the mess up and bring add-ons back into an all compatible with Thunderbird state..

I followed your instructions and did the import, however TB created two Outlook Import folders under 'Local Folders' - Outlook Import and Outlook Import0

This is one problem I need a fix for. But then the imported email messages can be found only under the Outlook Import0, and then when I click on a message in order to see it in the reading pane, it just shows its header and not the message body, so basically I can work with those messages

I am switching from Outlook 2010 32-bit to TB. I am using the 31.8.0 release in order to bypass the grey-out bug

I want to delete all Outlook Import folders and start the import from scratch, however it seems like I cannot delete the imported folders and their content