Can one of you fine folk advice me how to import messages from Thunderbird on my old PC to Thunderbird on a new PC?
I've tried copying everything in the email folders on the old PC into the corresponding folders on the new but it sees all the messages as folders and won't open them as emails!
Help!
Mike
On the old PC
Tools > Export... > Export
it should produce a .zip file with everything in copy that via USB stick/ network/ whatever to new PC, then
Tools > Import... > from a file
and point it to your copied .zip file
hopefully your file is under 2GB, otherwise you need to extract it yourself and point it to the folder you extraced to ...
Was about to suggest that then realised there is no Export optionon my version 91.13.1 perhaps if I upgrade it might appear...
The other point I was going to mention but this is from donkeys years ago, was that in the past I've had to set up all in-box sub-categories (which is quite extensive) on the target machine to be identical to the source machine in oder to import emails without an error. But as I said, this was rather a long time ago and I doubt anyone elses in-box has such a large directory structure.
Cheers - Pete
I don't have tools>export either on 102.5.1, only Import.
There is this addon though -
I do have export on 102.5.1, but you seem to be running 91.13.1
Oops, sorry. I only noticed the "upgrade to" with my slightly blurry eyes.
Shut down Thunderbird on the old machine. Find the data folder: mine is C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird - there should be folders such as Crash Reports, Pending Pings and Profiles, plus a couple of files. (You might need to enable hidden files to see the folder.) Copy all those - this is useful for backup purposes. Install Thunderbird (latest version) on the new machine; start it and stop it. Copy all the backup files into the data folder on the new machine, then restart Thunderbird. There should be a complete installation with all the information from the old installation.
There is alt.comp.software.thunderbird for this sort of query.
I normally just copy they whole %appdata%\Thunderbird folder to the new machine - when you start TB it will carry on like it was always that way.
Yes that's what I do.
I suspect a version mismatch. Brian
And of course there is also a portable version of Thunderbird as well. Brian
There is a potential, for the "folder-move-method" (which is what I use), to be more version intolerant, than the Export-Import method.
When you move the folder, the destination version of THunderbird should be equal or greater. You could move from say TBird 2.0.0.23 to a fresh install of TBird 91.0.
Whereas with Export-Import, maybe you could go from 91.0 to 2.0.0.23. Normally, the design intent of Export, is portability.
The message format(s) and box declarations probably haven't changed, but the password and master password concepts have changed with time. That's when "going forward" on version is going to work better.
I don't know what components are handled in Export-Import as I don't recollect using it.
Paul
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