Moving Thunderbird account from dead computer to new one
My hard drive crashed unexpectedly. Good news is that I had full backups. So, I cloned the drives, attached them to new machine and brought over all the files I needed. Reinstalled all the programs and pulled the data over from the cloned drives. Hit a problem with TB.
I have 3 mail clients on my machine. On 2 of them, it was just a matter of reinstalling the program and pointing back to the archive or profile for that program and presto, like I had never left.
Except for TB. TB refuses to acknowledge that there is any TB data anywhere on my machine or the cloned drives. It will not import any of the accounts or messages. It does not even see them. I *have* read all of the FAQs and help articles. They all assume that your old TB program is functional for some level of export. I *do* know where the profile and message archives are for TB. I have found them, they were backed up. But even in dragging them over to the correct folder in the new TB, I can not get TB to access the old files.
So, what I need to know is either how to:
1) Force TB to do an import of the old data (when I go to the "import" function it shows import ability from outlook, OE and Eudora but not TB)
-or-
2) How to get TB to recognize the old profile data
Pls do not point me back to the TB Migration article. Not only is it ragingly confusing but it does not address this issue as I can not "export" in any fashion from the dead computer. I am using backups.
Many thx in advance and a banana for the best answer! :)
Modified by MonkezUncle
Chosen solution
Zenos said
You don't need to export, or import. You simply move Thunderbird's old profile folder to where you want it. I'd suggest you run Thunderbird, but don't set up any accounts. Close it and it will have created a new empty profile. Write your old profile over the new one. You haven't said what your operating environment is. Your mention of Outlook and OE leads me to guess that it's some flavour of Windows. Thunderbird itself will tell you where its profile is. Help|Troubleshooting Information Look for "Profile directory" and click the button next to it, which will take you to your profile in your file manager/explorer. Close Thunderbird before doing anything with the old profile. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-tb#w_where-is-my-profile-stored Note that the profile is hidden by default and you will probably need to enable viewing of hidden files to work with it.
Close... very close. I just solved it compliments of:
Why in the world Mozilla made this so complicated I have no idea. Grateful for the help Zenos
Read this answer in context 👍 0All Replies (3)
You don't need to export, or import. You simply move Thunderbird's old profile folder to where you want it.
I'd suggest you run Thunderbird, but don't set up any accounts. Close it and it will have created a new empty profile. Write your old profile over the new one.
You haven't said what your operating environment is. Your mention of Outlook and OE leads me to guess that it's some flavour of Windows.
Thunderbird itself will tell you where its profile is.
Help|Troubleshooting Information
Look for "Profile directory" and click the button next to it, which will take you to your profile in your file manager/explorer.
Close Thunderbird before doing anything with the old profile.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-tb#w_where-is-my-profile-stored
Note that the profile is hidden by default and you will probably need to enable viewing of hidden files to work with it.
Chosen Solution
Zenos said
You don't need to export, or import. You simply move Thunderbird's old profile folder to where you want it. I'd suggest you run Thunderbird, but don't set up any accounts. Close it and it will have created a new empty profile. Write your old profile over the new one. You haven't said what your operating environment is. Your mention of Outlook and OE leads me to guess that it's some flavour of Windows. Thunderbird itself will tell you where its profile is. Help|Troubleshooting Information Look for "Profile directory" and click the button next to it, which will take you to your profile in your file manager/explorer. Close Thunderbird before doing anything with the old profile. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-tb#w_where-is-my-profile-stored Note that the profile is hidden by default and you will probably need to enable viewing of hidden files to work with it.
Close... very close. I just solved it compliments of:
Why in the world Mozilla made this so complicated I have no idea. Grateful for the help Zenos
Oh, and for anyone going from XP to Win 7 you need to move to "App Data -> Roaming ->TB -> Profiles"