Thunderbird is buggy and I want to reinstall BUT afraid that keeping her profile will also keep the bugs! Please help!
Hello this is for a friend ... Her Thunderbird is all messed up due to other people "helping her" with it and who know what else and she can send emails but they don't get stored in sent folder and a host of other problems which she has described but i cannot see as I am helping her via phone/distance... I would like to start afresh with a new Thunderbird installation but there is ONE folder that she needs to keep with old emails plus I suppose she does not want to lose her email address book...
How can we do this? I am guessing that keeping her "profile" as one usually would, would keep any bugs that she has in her current installation too? or am i wrong about this? I hope my question and situation is clear... Thank you so much in advance for your help...
All Replies (4)
It's quite hard to help people who post here directly; to try it at two steps removed is going to be very hard work.
I would agree that starting over with a clean profile might be a sensible precaution at this point.
In Account Settings, the entry for "Local directory:" (under Server Settings) will tell you where the folders for a particular account are stored. So these folders can be located and copied, then pasted into the new profile. Rather safer, IMHO is to use the ImportExportTools add-on to both export and import the required folders.
Note that the only safe place to import folders is into the Local Folders special account in the new installation of Thunderbird. Once imported, messages can be moved to other accounts or folders as required.
For address books, I'd use Tools|Export then Tools|Import to transfer address book data via LDIF files.
thank you so much Zenos! Yes, I understand that this might be tough but I have to try!!!
Ok, all that you said is understood so far... Will get back to you as needed... 2 questions...
1. In the ImportExportTools addon... what FORMAT should I export the folder in so that it can be easily added/imported into the new installation?
2. Where do i locate the Local Folders special account you mention??
thank you and Happy Christmas! :)
1. I'd use Export Folder, or Export Folder with subfolders (with structure), as appropriate. These will create exports using Thunderbird's native mail storage format.
2. Local Folders is a default account in Thunderbird. See the attached picture where it appears low down in the list of accounts.
thank you so much!