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Aligning the 'friendly' name of Thunderbird mail client to the name in the Windows Explorer file system

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Dear All, I would like to tidy up my Local Folders, after I imported them from Windows Live Mail. I would like to align the ‘friendly’ name of the Thunderbird mail client as much as possible with the ‘real’ name that the folder has in the file system of Windows Explorer (for example C:/Users/MyName/AppData/Roaming/Thunderbird/Profiles/XYZ1p.default/Mail/Local Folders/TopfolderA.sdb/subfolderA

I believe that Windows Live Mail uses a separate file for the name of the Local Folder. I understand the ‘subfolder.MSF’ file in Thunderbird is doing that job although I cannot open that file to see what it exactly says.

When I renamed for example ‘subfolderA’ in WLM to ‘subfolderB’ then that name was of course correctly displayed in the WLM interface, however, it was still called ‘subfolderA’ in the Windows Explorer file system. This caused great confusion when importing the folders into Thunderbird as it appeared as ‘subfolderA’.

So which option is best to tidy up my Thunderbird folders? 1. Rh click the folder in Thunderbird mail client and rename (that would be easiest) 2. Creating a new folder, eg ‘subfolderB’ and copying mails from ‘subfolderA’ to the new folder? 3. When moving whole subfolders in WLM I noticed that WLM kept not only the old name but the old location as well and moved them to the old location when importing into Thunderbird, resulting in great confusion for me. So again, would it be better to copy all mails from the old folder to the new folder rather than dragging the old folder to the new location? 4. When choosing a new folder name, I assume it’s best to stick to the restrictions of Windows Explorer file system, i.e. no ‘/’ or ‘&’ and so on.

I run Windows 10. Dell laptop Any advice would be welcome.

Dear All, I would like to tidy up my Local Folders, after I imported them from Windows Live Mail. I would like to align the ‘friendly’ name of the Thunderbird mail client as much as possible with the ‘real’ name that the folder has in the file system of Windows Explorer (for example C:/Users/MyName/AppData/Roaming/Thunderbird/Profiles/XYZ1p.default/Mail/Local Folders/TopfolderA.sdb/subfolderA I believe that Windows Live Mail uses a separate file for the name of the Local Folder. I understand the ‘subfolder.MSF’ file in Thunderbird is doing that job although I cannot open that file to see what it exactly says. When I renamed for example ‘subfolderA’ in WLM to ‘subfolderB’ then that name was of course correctly displayed in the WLM interface, however, it was still called ‘subfolderA’ in the Windows Explorer file system. This caused great confusion when importing the folders into Thunderbird as it appeared as ‘subfolderA’. So which option is best to tidy up my Thunderbird folders? 1. Rh click the folder in Thunderbird mail client and rename (that would be easiest) 2. Creating a new folder, eg ‘subfolderB’ and copying mails from ‘subfolderA’ to the new folder? 3. When moving whole subfolders in WLM I noticed that WLM kept not only the old name but the old location as well and moved them to the old location when importing into Thunderbird, resulting in great confusion for me. So again, would it be better to copy all mails from the old folder to the new folder rather than dragging the old folder to the new location? 4. When choosing a new folder name, I assume it’s best to stick to the restrictions of Windows Explorer file system, i.e. no ‘/’ or ‘&’ and so on. I run Windows 10. Dell laptop Any advice would be welcome.

Isisombulu esikhethiweyo

Yes, it would.

Funda le mpendulo kwimeko leyo 👍 0

All Replies (4)

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I understand the ‘subfolder.MSF’ file in Thunderbird is doing that job although I cannot open that file to see what it exactly says.

.msf files are index files. Don't mess with them. Each mail folder in Thunderbird corresponds to a mail file in the file system (without a file extension). The .msf index file gets generated automatically with the same name as the mail file.

So which option is best to tidy up my Thunderbird folders? 1. Rh click the folder in Thunderbird mail client and rename

Option 1.

4. When choosing a new folder name, I assume it’s best to stick to the restrictions of Windows Explorer file system, i.e. no ‘/’ or ‘&’ and so on.

Yes.

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Thanks for the reply.

Regarding 'The .msf index file gets generated automatically with the same name as the mail file.' I assume that means it gets generated as soon as the folder is created. My problem in Windows Live Mail was that the 'index file' did not seem to change when changing the 'friendly name' in the WLM interface. And this caused the confusion when I imported the files to Thunderbird - renamed folders were showing with old names.

Would in Thunderbird the .msf index file change as soon as a Local Folder is renamed in the Thunderbird email client interface? That would be perfect behaviour!

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Isisombululo esiKhethiweyo

Yes, it would.

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Hi christ1,

Thanks for your replies.

Regards Blackredgold1964