Copy IMAP folders and emails from one profile to another
Attempting to copy all emails and folders, etc. from one IMAP account to another in Thunderbird. We are changing our company email addresses to end in a different extension (from user @old.com to user@new.com). If it matters, we are going from one GoDaddy email address to another.
I have used Thunderbird to create a profile to access the current email address (user@old.com) and ensured all messages/folders were present in the profiles folder (imap.secureserver.net). I backed up this profile folder.
I created a new profile in Thunderbird to access the new email address (user@new.com). Unfortunately to do so, I had to delete the (user@old.com) first from GoDaddy.
I have spent 8+ hours reading articles here and around the internet on how to copy the messages & folders to the new account with no luck. I have tried the following: - Manually copy the contents of the (imap.secureserver.net) folder from the old profile directory to the new. When I do this and start Thunderbird with the new profile (abc@new.com), the folders appear briefly but then disappear. - Use the "Import/Export Tools" extension add on but none of the options available with this extension work including import profile, etc. - I opened up 2 versions of Firefox at the same time (-no-remote) an tried to copy folders and emails between the windows, Does not work.
Am I attempting to do something that can't be done? Is there a different way to accomplish this in easier fashion? Such I be setting up the profiles as POP versus IMAP (issue here is emails don't seem to download from the server via POP)?
Any and all assistance would be greatly appreciated! Thank you
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Can GoDaddy not help you with this? I presume you are a paying customer and they have unique access to both of your accounts.
Can you set the new account to collect messages from the old, via the webmail portal?
Can you set the old account to forward messages to the new account, via webmail?
The mail store for an IMAP account in a Thunderbird profile is not guaranteed to be a complete, self-contained collection of messages.
I think the most likely method to succeed, using Thunderbird, is to force it to download all the messages; usually you can do this by making copies in Local Folders. Then move or copy those messages to the new account. This is not easy or efficient, particularly if you have a large mailstore or a complex file structure.
Thank you for the response Zenos.
I had contacted GoDaddy a few times to discuss my options. They said they can move all messages and folders from the old email accounts to the new IF we switch to the Office 365 platform. Outside of that, they recommended using Thunderbird to "bridge the gap".
I have set up a forward account from the old email address to the new for future message.
You hit the nail on the head about the challenge of making copies in the Local Folder and then moving/copying to the new accounts. Very complex file structures and large mailstores.
Just not sure on what step to take next ...
If you are unable to access both e-mail accounts using IMAP at the same time, then the proper procedure would be to save/move all the folders and e-mails from the old account to Thunderbird's "Local Folders" to be saved on your computer, then copy those folders and e-mails to the new account.
Since you have deleted/removed the old account from the server, you now have only the backed-up Profile, which hopefully has all the e-mails. It does if you had set in Thunderbird to save the e-mails on your computer.
You were on the right track about copying the contents of your "ImapMail\imap.secureserver.net" folder, but wrong about 'where to copy them to.
First, in Thunderbird, create a folder under "Local Folders" called "Recover". Then under "Recover" create another folder. It doesn't matter what that folder name is. This is just to force Thunderbird to create a folder on the hard drive.
Quit Thunderbird.
Find your current Thunderbird Profile folder, then navigate to Mail/Local Folders/Recover.sdb.
Copy the contents of your backup of "ImapMail\imap.secureserver.net" to this "Recover.sdb" folder.
Start Thunderbird.
The e-mails you want should now be under that "Recover" folder in "Local Folders".
Copy (not move), those folders & e-mails to your new IMAP folders, but do so only in small batches. IMAP was never meant to be used as a file system, so trying to transfer large amounts of data can "break" it, or otherwise cause errors. By copying, not moving the e-mails, if you do get an error, you will not lose any e-mails.
Bruce, thank you for the assistance. I have attempted to copy emails from the "Local" folders to the IMAP folders but it doesn't appear to be working.
I am attaching three screenshots to show the steps taken:
- Capture 1 - Highlight messages and right click mouse. Use "Copy To" IMAP inbox.
- Capture 2 - Activity Monitor shows this was completed.
- Capture 3 - IMAP inbox only shows 3 of the 13 messages came over. If I highlight the messages again in the LOCAL folder inbox, I see the option "Copy to Inbox Again".
Not sure why this is not working - do you have any ideas? Also, when I right click on any of the MY Folders in the LOCAL FOLDER location, I don't see a copy option available.
Thanks again for your help - it is greatly appreciated!
I forgot to mention I did close and reopen Thunderbird a few times after "copying" the emails to see if they would eventually appear but they have not.
Your e-mail address shows in your second screenshot, so I see that you are using your own company domain name.
When I check out that website, it is very slow to load. Also Pings to the domain name get slow responses. This tells me that the web server at least, is slow and/or overloaded.
If the e-mail server is also slow/sluggish, then that explains your current issue of the e-mails not transferring properly.
In normal circumstances with a fast server, you can encounter problems with transferring large amounts of e-mails via IMAP (like I said before). Your slow server is compounding these problems.
You are going to have to talk to your IT person or whoever manages your domain name and hosting, to solve the slow server problem.
Meanwhile, you will have to either be extremely patient with copying the e-mails to the server, or just be happy that they are on your computer.
By the way, the ***.msf folders you are seeing in thunderbird were erroneously created, so you can delete them. You will already have noticed that they don't contain anything.
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Bruce - thank you for the response.
The domain is managed by GoDaddy and we use their WorkSpace Email application for accessing our email. I will contact them about the latency issue on this side to see if they can be of any assistance.
Bottom line is I don't think I will be able to complete this transfer of messages & folders via Thunderbird or any other application out there. We have 5 other user accounts with intricate folder structures and lots of messages. I started with this first account that is very small to test out this process. Copying all items from LOCAL FOLDERS to the IMAP folders for one of the other user accounts would be extremely time consuming.
If you have any other suggestion on an application or process to make this happen, I would love to hear them. If not, I will have to get back on the phone with GoDaddy to see if they have any other ideas on how to make this happen since Thunderbird was their recommendation.
Thank you!
If the old e-mails are still on a GoDaddy server, then GoDaddy should be able to transfer them, like Zeno originally said.
The only other choice is the long hard way I described.