Followed your procedure to copy email to a new Windows 10 computer, but Thunderbird knows the profile was replaced and creates a new one, won't use the copy.
Followed your procedure successfully back in January, but now I am doing another computer and it is not working. I paste the Thunderbird folder from the old Windows 7 computer into the Roaming folder of the new computer and choose replace files. When I launch Thunderbird it creates another profile with a name of it's own choosing and leaves my copied profile intact in the same directory. Tried running "Thunderbird -p" but the Profile Manager will not accept the existing profile from the old computer either.
Chosen solution
Yes, the directory structure looks identical when I am done. I also tried run -> %appdata% to get to the right location.
I found another procedure that had me copy the profile from the old computer before installing Thunderbird and then skip the account creation steps. Of course, I had to uninstall Thunderbird and all profiles first. I did this, and although Thunderbird created a profile as usual, this time I was able to use the Profile Manager to switch to the desired profile. The other profile is still hanging around - not sure if I will be able to delete it or not. That procedure was at:
When Thunderbird came up I was able to see the Inbox in the left hand pane with the count of unread emails, although I got an error message when I clicked on it, and then a blue circle showing it was busy. Had to perform a further step of deleting all the *.msf files. Next time I launched Thunderbird the Inbox, Sent and Draft folders started populating with emails as it rebuilt it's indexes. It is now working.
I would like to thank those who responded to my original post.
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Are you sure you are copying and pasting at the right spot? It sounds like you are not copying the profile.ini file over. (Which lives a level or two above the profile directories.)
In the instructions at:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/moving-thunderbird-data-to-a-new-computer
At steps 4 and 12 it says: "From your Thunderbird profile folder, go up three levels. " These steps are critical.
Modified by Daveh110
Chosen Solution
Yes, the directory structure looks identical when I am done. I also tried run -> %appdata% to get to the right location.
I found another procedure that had me copy the profile from the old computer before installing Thunderbird and then skip the account creation steps. Of course, I had to uninstall Thunderbird and all profiles first. I did this, and although Thunderbird created a profile as usual, this time I was able to use the Profile Manager to switch to the desired profile. The other profile is still hanging around - not sure if I will be able to delete it or not. That procedure was at:
When Thunderbird came up I was able to see the Inbox in the left hand pane with the count of unread emails, although I got an error message when I clicked on it, and then a blue circle showing it was busy. Had to perform a further step of deleting all the *.msf files. Next time I launched Thunderbird the Inbox, Sent and Draft folders started populating with emails as it rebuilt it's indexes. It is now working.
I would like to thank those who responded to my original post.