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How do I transfer my e-mail account to another computer

  • 3 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by guigs

JonathanRN
JonathanRN
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My wife and I both have separate e-mail accounts on Thunderbird, which are on her laptop. I wish to transfer only my account to a new desktop computer I recently bought, and remove it from her laptop so I won't have to delete e-mails from both computers. I want to transfer existing inbox e-mails and archived items. Of course I want no changes to her account. Thank you so much.

My wife and I both have separate e-mail accounts on Thunderbird, which are on her laptop. I wish to transfer only my account to a new desktop computer I recently bought, and remove it from her laptop so I won't have to delete e-mails from both computers. I want to transfer existing inbox e-mails and archived items. Of course I want no changes to her account. Thank you so much.

All Replies (3)

guigs
guigs
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Hi, please make a copy of the profile folder associated with the account you are trying to export.

See first Moving your Thunderbird to a new pc See Mozillazine: Moving your profile folder

I hope this helps.

JonathanRN
JonathanRN Question owner
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Wow! For something I expected to be a simple process, this looks awfully complicated for someone like me who is only moderately computer savvy. Looks like I'll probably have to pay someone to accomplish this for me. Can I not go to the Thunderbird website and ask them to move my entire account to my new desktop computer?

guigs
guigs
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Hi JonathanRN, Thunderbird is only an email client and depending on if the email is a POP3 or IMAP will determine if the server has a mirror image of the mail folders as they do on the first computer.

So, technically, if you set up the email on the new computer successfully and download all the messages. You can check out if the mail has the same folders. However filters are stored in the profile as are some local folders.

But in that first article there is a third party app called Mozbackup that will help you back up the profile to a folder then move it to the new installation on the new computer.

I hope this helps.