This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Thunderbird working on external hard drive (another partition)

  • 2 cavab
  • 0 have this problem
  • 2 views
  • Last reply by ecop1

more options

I have an HD (main, operating system) that is full. And I can't download emails from Thunderbird anymore.

But I have another external hard drive with enough space (which even use for Thunderbird backup). I would like to make my current Thunderbird (from the operating system) work directly on the external hard drive. It's possible?

Thanks! ;-)

My versions: . OS: Debian 5.10.0-26-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.10.197-1 (2023-09-29) x86_64 GNU/Linux . Thunderbird: 115.5.0 (64-bit) / Supernova

I have an HD (main, operating system) that is full. And I can't download emails from Thunderbird anymore. But I have another external hard drive with enough space (which even use for Thunderbird backup). I would like to make my current Thunderbird (from the operating system) work directly on the external hard drive. It's possible? Thanks! ;-) My versions: . OS: Debian 5.10.0-26-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.10.197-1 (2023-09-29) x86_64 GNU/Linux . Thunderbird: 115.5.0 (64-bit) / Supernova

All Replies (2)

more options

You will need some familiarity with the file management of Linux (which I don't have). To create a profile on the other drive, click help>troubleshootinginformation, scroll down to 'profile folders' and click 'about:profiles' and click the 'create profile' button and, from there, define a profile on the other drive. You would then need to copy the profile contents of old folder to the profile on the other drive. Another option on saving space would be to just move the account to the other drive, assuming that it's the account and the messages that take up space. To do that, you could click 'account settings' and on the account page, look at bottom line where it shows the location of the account. You could exit TB and copy the folder to the other drive. Then, restart TB, click the account settings page and click the select button on that line to select the profile where you had copied it to the other drive. Exit and restart TB to verify that all is well. Once satisfied. you could then delete the account folder from the profile.

more options

Unfortunately I couldn't get it to work with any of the options.