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TB: How can I move my filters from one account to another?

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I would like to move my 32 filters from one new account to another old account, and there is tantalizingly incomplete information on how to do that in another question/answer at: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1180856.

That answer says to copy the "msgFilterRules.dat" file instead of recreating all the filters individually, and when I look for that file I find it in the Local Folders folder in my default profile. The Local Folders is now being used for archiving messages from both accounts (and was created when there was only the old account), all are part of the same default profile, the only one I am using

So to where would or should I copy the .dat file to? I guess that my understanding of the architecture of TB isn't adequate to understand that placement or anticipate what to do.

I would like to move my 32 filters from one new account to another old account, and there is tantalizingly incomplete information on how to do that in another question/answer at: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1180856. That answer says to copy the "msgFilterRules.dat" file instead of recreating all the filters individually, and when I look for that file I find it in the Local Folders folder in my default profile. The Local Folders is now being used for archiving messages from both accounts (and was created when there was only the old account), all are part of the same default profile, the only one I am using So to where would or should I copy the .dat file to? I guess that my understanding of the architecture of TB isn't adequate to understand that placement or anticipate what to do.

Chosen solution

Bingo! I moved the 7 KB .dat file from the POP folder to the IMAP folder and am set, and happy, and grateful: Thanks for all your support, and for all these necessary lessons in TB architecture.

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All Replies (4)

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Help/Troubleshooting Information, click Open Folder (or Show Folder) to open the profile folder. Look in the Mail (for POP accounts) or ImapMail (for IMAP accounts) subfolders, and in each of these open the subfolder corresponding to each account, e.g. mail.domain.net. Each account subfolder will have a msgFilterRules.dat file if filters have been created for that account. Copy the dat file from one account to another, overwriting the existing dat file. Close TB before editing the profile folder.

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sfhowes, I tried that in Finder, moving the msgFilterRules.dat file from the Local Folders folder to the imap.mail.me.com (the iCloud server) folder in the ImapMail folder, overwriting the one that was there, and re-launching TB and then rebooting my Mac as well, to no avail.

That .dat file is only 25 bytes in size, and couldn't in itself contain all that filter information, so is it pointing to some other resource somewhere? What's up with this?

And by the way, that thick-black-window-border effect with TB in Mac OS 10.13.3 is just getting worse and worse, with all sorts of window-rendering delays. This isn't happening with other apps, as far as I can tell so far.

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The msgFilterRules.dat in Local Folders applies to a Global Inbox if you have defined one, but 'Local Folders' isn't the same as email accounts. Copying filters from one account to another only applies to email accounts.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Filters_(Thunderbird)

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Chosen Solution

Bingo! I moved the 7 KB .dat file from the POP folder to the IMAP folder and am set, and happy, and grateful: Thanks for all your support, and for all these necessary lessons in TB architecture.