Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Merge old Thunderbird mail with new

  • 1 reply
  • 1 has this problem
  • 10 views
  • Last reply by AgnesRM

scottmace2005
scottmace2005
more options

My computer recently crashed and I had to reinstall Thunderbird. None of my old messages showed up. I have a back up copy of Thunderbird with all my old messages. How can I retrieve them and merge them in with my new messages in my new install of Thunderbird.

My computer recently crashed and I had to reinstall Thunderbird. None of my old messages showed up. I have a back up copy of Thunderbird with all my old messages. How can I retrieve them and merge them in with my new messages in my new install of Thunderbird.

All Replies (1)

AgnesRM
AgnesRM
more options

If your account is IMAP, you should simply be able to set up the connections for IMAP and SMTP in the fresh Thunderbird, and 'subscribe' / sync each folder to see the messages from the server. However if your Thunderbird setup was POP, or you stored a lot of messages that had been fully downloaded and saved in local folders, then you would need to connect Thunderbird with your old profile. See this article for details of ways to do that https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-thunderbird-stores-user-data