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How to move data from a raw, UNbacked up profile to new computer?

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  • Last reply by Danpat2

Danpat2
Danpat2
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My old Windows XP laptop, with a huge, multi-gigabyte, multi-account Thunderbird profile, suffered a catastrophic failure before I could properly "back up" the profile and its contents, mail files and local folders. I was able to copy the whole profile intact from the salvaged hard disk, but cannot figure how to integrate information from that into a profile on a new Windows 10 computer with the latest version of Thunderbird.

One of the accounts in the old profile is no longer in use, but the old emails contain crucial information. And because of an ISP change, there now exist different connection settings. These are the complications. What is of great importance are the mail and the local folders.

With earlier T-bird versions, one could just create a new profile, populate it with the old profile contents and edit the profiles.ini file to change to the different path of the new computer. It seems all different now and I'm at sea.

Hoping there's a way to get around this and that someone can walk me, step-by-step, through the process.

Thanks, DP

My old Windows XP laptop, with a huge, multi-gigabyte, multi-account Thunderbird profile, suffered a catastrophic failure before I could properly "back up" the profile and its contents, mail files and local folders. I was able to copy the whole profile intact from the salvaged hard disk, but cannot figure how to integrate information from that into a profile on a new Windows 10 computer with the latest version of Thunderbird. One of the accounts in the old profile is no longer in use, but the old emails contain crucial information. And because of an ISP change, there now exist different connection settings. These are the complications. What is of great importance are the mail and the local folders. With earlier T-bird versions, one could just create a new profile, populate it with the old profile contents and edit the profiles.ini file to change to the different path of the new computer. It seems all different now and I'm at sea. Hoping there's a way to get around this and that someone can walk me, step-by-step, through the process. Thanks, DP

Chosen solution

The instructions for transferring an old profile to a new computer are given here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-tb 'restoring to a different location' is the relevant bit and you'll see that, in principle, it's simply a matter of copying the old files to the new profile folder. However in your case it seems that you don't necessarily want all the old files to be copied into the new location. Therefore you might want to read this article as well: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird That article gives you a fairly detailed breakdown of what the files are within the profile folder, which may help you to identify what you want/need to copy and what you can leave. Also I have seen several recommendations for the ImportExportTools add-on. I've not had the need to use it myself, but it seems to get good ratings, and apparently it provides an easier way to copy folders, files and even individual emails from an old profile into a new one. You might want to look at it, at least.

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All Replies (2)

amanchesterman
amanchesterman
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Chosen Solution

The instructions for transferring an old profile to a new computer are given here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-tb 'restoring to a different location' is the relevant bit and you'll see that, in principle, it's simply a matter of copying the old files to the new profile folder. However in your case it seems that you don't necessarily want all the old files to be copied into the new location. Therefore you might want to read this article as well: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird That article gives you a fairly detailed breakdown of what the files are within the profile folder, which may help you to identify what you want/need to copy and what you can leave. Also I have seen several recommendations for the ImportExportTools add-on. I've not had the need to use it myself, but it seems to get good ratings, and apparently it provides an easier way to copy folders, files and even individual emails from an old profile into a new one. You might want to look at it, at least.

Danpat2
Danpat2 Question owner
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Well, by gosh, it worked this time. I'd tried before with no success, which was why I wrote. But this time, I made no attempt to connect first with the new profile, then backed out and filled it with the contents of the old one. Perfect. Did it twice, with two profiles. New problem now, so a new separate question... (how to combine them?) Thanks so much.