If POP, the easiest way is to create new folders in Local Folders and copy (not move) the messages to new folders. An optional approach would be to - exit thunderbird, - in Windows file manager (or whatever OS you use's file manager), locate the profile and in Mail\<POPaccount> folder, copy the message files (e.g., inbox,inbox.msf,sent, sent.msf) to Mail\Local Folders, rename to something meaningful, delete the msf versions (TB will recreate the indexes). - restart TB and verify that your messages are okay, and then you can delete the old account.

If IMAP, click file>offline>download to get all messages local. Then, review to ensure you're satisfied. - Now, you can create new folders in Local Folders as above and COPY (not move) selected messages to the new folders, or use the other option of exiting TB and repeat what I posted for POP, going to the Imapmail\<imapaccount> folder and copy the files as mentioned above. - restart tb and verify that all is okay. Now you can close the imap account.

- When doing such as the above, I always recommend doing a backup BEFORE and also AFTER. And the only backup I trust goes like this: - exit thunderbird - copy the profile, usually at c:\users\<yourid>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird to a USB drive (assuming you use Windows)

Thanks for the response david. When you say copy do you mean copy the text of each message? If not that what am I copying for each message? I see if I click on a file in a folder it does give me the option to copy it to another folder - does that not work? They are IMAP ones.

These messages are already in folders, but not under Local Files - I don't use that. I just want to either move or copy them to new folders under the new e-mail address.

And yes, I'm going to make a backup just in case. I'm a computer idiot when it comes to these things so always try and do one before trying anything I'm not familiar with.

To copy messages from within thunderbird, I would highlight in the message list pane and COPY or drag to new folder. Since you will have already created new Local Folders, I suggest highlight, rightclick and select the menu option of 'copy to' and the select the folder. If there are many messages, I suggest the other approach of exiting TB and copying the mail files themselves as that ensures everything is copied. I suggest not focusing on the new email address, as your first priority is in saving the messages. If you want to later integrate those messges in a new account, that is its own little project. If that is your preference, you can create the new IMAP account alongside the current one, but copying IMAP to IMAP is dicey. It just wasn't made for that and my fear is you would lose messages. But maybe I'm too conservative.

Thanks david. I'll get a back up made and then try to copy a few and see what happens. I'll probably go with doing each one individually because I'm pretty sure there are a fair few I can actually delete, but I've just never bothered to do it in those folders.