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Shifting Thuderbird to a new PC while retaining old data on the old HDD

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  • Last reply by Matt

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Hi, I have Thunderbird installed on a PC with over 8 years of emails saved. As that PC (lets call it A) has reached the end of its life a new PC (B) has been purchased. I would like to install Thunderbird on PC B and shift the HDD from PC A which has 8 years of email on it to the new machine. While all new email gets saved on the new SSD installed on PC B.

So when done I will use Thunderbird on PC B with all new mails accessed and available from the SSD of PC B and all old emails accessible from the old HDD of PC A which is now installed within PC B.

I hope this is possible! Please guide me on how to do this.

The intention being not to either loose data from PC A or immediately fill up PC B with old data.

Thanks Gautam

Hi, I have Thunderbird installed on a PC with over 8 years of emails saved. As that PC (lets call it A) has reached the end of its life a new PC (B) has been purchased. I would like to install Thunderbird on PC B and shift the HDD from PC A which has 8 years of email on it to the new machine. While all new email gets saved on the new SSD installed on PC B. So when done I will use Thunderbird on PC B with all new mails accessed and available from the SSD of PC B and all old emails accessible from the old HDD of PC A which is now installed within PC B. I hope this is possible! Please guide me on how to do this. The intention being not to either loose data from PC A or immediately fill up PC B with old data. Thanks Gautam

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first you need to be sure you have access to your old profile as it is normally in a folder hidden by windows. But once you are there, use the profile manager to create a new profile and in the creation process point it to the folder with your old profile in it. Then you can access the old data simply by using the correct profile.

See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-thunderbird-profiles