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.

Thunderbird Export/Import loses all personal e-mail folders

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by Matt

Wilderness Guy
Wilderness Guy
more options

Thunderbird 115 was so bad that I exported my profile to a Thunderbird_profile_backup.zip on my Windows-11 laptop. I restored to Thunderbird 102.15.1. I had to re-create my profile before it would let me import my profile -- this should be fixed !!! Once I restored my profile, all of my personal e-mail folders were gone. The Export said it would also export my e-mails, but this didn't happen -- or at least the Import didn't restore them. Thunderbird 102.15.1 should be fixed to restore everything.

By the way, my e-mails were originally in a folder that I specified, not in the default folder.

Thunderbird 115 was so bad that I exported my profile to a Thunderbird_profile_backup.zip on my Windows-11 laptop. I restored to Thunderbird 102.15.1. I had to re-create my profile before it would let me import my profile -- this should be fixed !!! Once I restored my profile, all of my personal e-mail folders were gone. The Export said it would also export my e-mails, but this didn't happen -- or at least the Import didn't restore them. Thunderbird 102.15.1 should be fixed to restore everything. By the way, my e-mails were originally in a folder that I specified, not in the default folder.

All Replies (2)

Wilderness Guy
Wilderness Guy Question owner
more options

To clarify this problem:

I changed the Tools->Account Settings: Message Storage: Local Directory back to my previous folder for e-mails and this restored all of my personal e-mail folders.

The point of this problem report is that this should have been included as part of the Export/Import function.

The Export/Import also did not restore the "Move to" -> "Recent" folder list.

Also, installing a new version of Thunderbird always loses all of the additional entries I have saved to my local Thunderbird Dictionary. The local Dictionary should also be included during an Export/Import.

Matt
Matt
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

There is no backward compatibility of profiles, regardless of how they go backwards. You certainly can not "move" them using backup and restore. Not successfully in my experience.

Export does not mess with IMAP emails as they will be downloaded when Thunderbird starts. I don't like it, but that is how it has always worked. Import does not import passwords. Again a failure that has not yet been addressed after more than a year.

There is a feedback forum linked to from the Thunderbird help menu. Perhaps you have feedback to offer the developers.