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Thunderbird Email setup with domain

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  • Last reply by Stans

Kelston3
Kelston3
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I have been using Thunderbird as my email client with a GoDaddy domain. I would always download my emails locally using Thunderbird so I could view emails even when offline. I recently transferred the domain to Namecheap and then connected the email account associated with that domain to google workspace. When I made that change, the thunderbird client would no longer display any of the emails, including the ones I downloaded locally. I now get a message that the email account has the incorrect password, which I understand from the domain change.

My question is, once I make adjustments to reconnect the email account with thunderbird, will I be able to access the emails I downloaded previously, or will it delete or write over the old emails that were downloaded before the domain change?

I have been using Thunderbird as my email client with a GoDaddy domain. I would always download my emails locally using Thunderbird so I could view emails even when offline. I recently transferred the domain to Namecheap and then connected the email account associated with that domain to google workspace. When I made that change, the thunderbird client would no longer display any of the emails, including the ones I downloaded locally. I now get a message that the email account has the incorrect password, which I understand from the domain change. My question is, once I make adjustments to reconnect the email account with thunderbird, will I be able to access the emails I downloaded previously, or will it delete or write over the old emails that were downloaded before the domain change?

All Replies (1)

Stans
Stans
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I strongly suggest you backup your Thunderbird profile folder first, prior to making said adjustments. You should be making regular backups of your data anyway, because data loss is an expensive and painful experience. This way, you wouldn't have to worry about what might or might not happen when you reconnect Tbird to your new domain hosting account.

The fastest and easiest way of backing up Thunderbird data is to:

  1. Quit Thunderbird
  2. Right-click the Start menu icon, select Run, type %APPDATA% in the Run box and press Enter. This will open the AppData\Roaming folder for your Windows user account. Inside this, you will find the Thunderbird folder.
  3. Copy the Thunderbird folder and Paste it into a suitable backup location, such as an external hard drive. To learn more about this folder, see Profiles - Where Thunderbird stores your messages and other user data

After you have that copy stashed away safely, you can confidently reconfigure Thunderbird, knowing that in case anything goes wrong, you have a backup of all the messages that had been downloaded by Tbird before the adjustments.

Also, I would setup the account in Tbird afresh, using the new hosting server details INSTEAD OF re-configuring the old account, especially IF you were using IMAP. This way, if you wish to upload the local copies of your mail to the new server (via IMAP only), you can easily do so when the old (inaccessible) and new server configurations are kept as separate accounts in Thunderbird. No one can guarantee that re-configuring Tbird the way you plan to will NOT result in an unprecedented outcome, so you're better off playing safe than being sorry afterwards.