hi jlynch541, what you need is work with the thunderbird "profile" ("Thunderbird stores all personal data such as messages, address books and configuration settings in an OS folder called the profile.)",

you can read about the profiles in the Mozilla Knowledge Base Profile folder - Thunderbird and how to move it Thunderbird Moving your profile folder - Thunderbird. These Knowledge Base articles are written for more than one operating system, that's why these seem complicated, and intimidating. But fear not, I'm happy to support you more specifically with your specific system if you let me know which operating system you are using (eg. Win and if so which version, Mac OSX and if so which version, Linux and if so which distro). Looking forward to hear from you. All the best from Stockholm.

Thank you, fabio9, for your kind and rapid assistance. I did read about how to migrate and how to choose the file that has the Thunderbird profile. And so on. After having read all about doing that, I have also read about others who have done so and are having problems. Problems I do not want to bring on by transferring something that this laptop uses to go and fetch and to send my emails. All I want to do is to store emails that I want to save and have already saved.

If it would help, I can move emails from the inbox into local folders. Can I leave Thunderbird on this laptop but move the local folders to the external hd? But if I go ahead and migrate the entire account profile and go through that procedure, how can I know that I can still send and receive email on this laptop? Does the external need to be attached if my profile etc is on it? If I simply follow the directions for migrating to another computer, but instead migrate everything to this external, detachable hard drive, will Thunderbird still be installed here on this laptop? If so, can I then move as many Thunderbird local files and their contents to the hd? Thank you for understanding.

Apprehension is caused by the years of emails that I have collected and do not want to lose. I did not mean to pass along my feelings. I still have unanswered questions that make me feel less at ease just blindly following the directions and pushing the enter button. Thank you for your further assistance.

hi again jlynch541, let me separate things a bit and then unite them again, - location of thunderbird; as stated in the articles is the app "Thunderbird" and it's "profiles" (local profile) two separate things, you can have Thunderbird installed on your computer or on your hd and the "profiles" somewhere else, you choose, - moving a local profile to a hd; yes, by definition you need then have your hd attached if you wish to operate on downloaded emails (maybe not if an IMAP account since you do still have a copy of all your emails on the server and if a POP account, then definitively yes since all your emails are downloaded from the server) , irrespective of whether you have Thunderbird installed on your laptop or on the hd, whichever local profile you choose use need be accessible at the time you use it, - you can have multiple local profiles at the same time, say one on your laptop and one on your hd, you can choose which one to use with the profile manager (aka you can setup Thunderbird asking at startup which one to use), - as stated above depending on wheter an IMAP account then you do still have a copy of all your emails on the server and if it's a POP account, then are all your emails removed from the server when downloaded to your local profile, when using an IMAP account you can basically use as many accounts you want and removing the (all) account does basically not remove your emails on the server So migrating everything to the hd can absolutely solve your problem, caveat you will have both Thunderbird and your local profile on you hd. If you want to be able to use Thunderbird even when you do not have your hd attached, then you can't migrate Thunderbird, you need "simply" move or create a new local profile.

Again, I need know the operating system environment to be able to be more specific, a bit depending why you need, but as an alternative I would tend to suggest that you use two local profiles.

Again, assuming you are using an IMAP account and not a POP (the former keeps downloaded emails on the server, the later removes downloaded emails). ONE local profile where you set as parameter to NOT download IMAP emails, this is quite lean and you can keep it on your laptop, the OTHER local profile on your HD where you download all emails, which is the cause of your problem. The only difference when using any of these profiles will be that when you are offline, you will not be able to read your email using the local profile on your laptop eg. where you have stopped downloading emails to your local profile. In offline mode you will need attach your hd and use your hd stored local profile.

This support forum article is about the use of multiple profiles Using Multiple Profiles and this article gives you directions on how to stop Thunderbird from automatically downloading emails how can I stop Thunderbird from automatically downloading emails?.

Let me know how I can further support you. All the best from Stockholm.