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How can I move my old messages from my PC to my new Macbook (not the profile, just the messages)?

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  • Last reply by Matt

glenhwpg
glenhwpg
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I have used Thunderbird for years as I am a business owner who needs to keep a copy of old emails. I have just changed from a PC to a Macbook pro, and want to move all my old archived messages from the past 2 or 3 years to my Mac, including non-archived messages (Sent & Trash) from this year. I have already created my profile in the new Mac, and have been using it for the past couple of weeks. (By the way, this is a POP mail profile.) Now I just want to move the old messages over. Which exact files do I copy and paste, and into which folders? If the folders do not yet exist, I guess I need to create them first. But where on the Mac? I have found (on my old PC) the "Appdata/Roaming/Thunderbird/Profiles/*.default/Mail/username/ directory with Archives and Trash subdirectories. But each directory seems to have a name (like "Inbox", or "Sent" or "2013") and another file with the same name, but an ".msf" suffix (like "Inbox.msf" or "Sent.msf" or "2013.msf"). Thanks in advance to any who can help.

I have used Thunderbird for years as I am a business owner who needs to keep a copy of old emails. I have just changed from a PC to a Macbook pro, and want to move all my old archived messages from the past 2 or 3 years to my Mac, including non-archived messages (Sent & Trash) from this year. I have already created my profile in the new Mac, and have been using it for the past couple of weeks. (By the way, this is a POP mail profile.) Now I just want to move the old messages over. Which exact files do I copy and paste, and into which folders? If the folders do not yet exist, I guess I need to create them first. But where on the Mac? I have found (on my old PC) the "Appdata/Roaming/Thunderbird/Profiles/*.default/Mail/username/ directory with Archives and Trash subdirectories. But each directory seems to have a name (like "Inbox", or "Sent" or "2013") and another file with the same name, but an ".msf" suffix (like "Inbox.msf" or "Sent.msf" or "2013.msf"). Thanks in advance to any who can help.

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Matt
Matt
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The file structure is a little complex. I will use inbox as an example. 

Inbox (a large file with no file extension)

Inbox.msf ( An index of inbox with tags etc. Can be deleted with only loss of tags) Inbox.sdb (a folder, indicating that the folder within Thunderbird has a sub folder.

POP mail is stored in Appdata/Roaming/Thunderbird/Profiles/*.default/Mail/[Server name]/ Local folder is stored in Appdata/Roaming/Thunderbird/Profiles/*.default/Mail/Local Folders/

As long as you do not overwrite, you can copy and paste whole folder trees into local folders (stuff on your old computer under a mail account is best relocated to local folder and then sorted as necessary afterwards.

Note that you should delete foldertree.json after making those sorts of copies (it forces a full refresh of the folder tree, no cache) and under no circumstances copy data with Thunderbird running. It can irrevocably corrupt things