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I want to copy a 2011 Archive into my current folder

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  • Last reply by jphilweybr

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I have Thunderbird running with an Archive 2016 folder and another for 2015 with obviously an archive.msf file in my profile folder. I want to read some 2011 emails, I kept a copy of the relevant archive and archive.msf files from that time. Can I simply copy these into my current profile folder without messing up my currently archived emails?

I have Thunderbird running with an Archive 2016 folder and another for 2015 with obviously an archive.msf file in my profile folder. I want to read some 2011 emails, I kept a copy of the relevant archive and archive.msf files from that time. Can I simply copy these into my current profile folder without messing up my currently archived emails?

Chosen solution

Yes you can. You could back up the existing Archive files just in case, but adding the 2011 files there should not affect others - it should just show up. Do make sure Thunderbird is closed when copying adding the file(s).

Empty archives are represented as 0 bytes sized files, .msf files should be created when missing. (You can even create a new folder in Thunderbird called 2011 and see what it does on disk, then remove it afterwards.) If you have an existing and small archive containing just a few messages, you can open its Archive file with a text editor and see that it just contains text.

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Chosen Solution

Yes you can. You could back up the existing Archive files just in case, but adding the 2011 files there should not affect others - it should just show up. Do make sure Thunderbird is closed when copying adding the file(s).

Empty archives are represented as 0 bytes sized files, .msf files should be created when missing. (You can even create a new folder in Thunderbird called 2011 and see what it does on disk, then remove it afterwards.) If you have an existing and small archive containing just a few messages, you can open its Archive file with a text editor and see that it just contains text.

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That worked a treat. Many thanks