Copy profiles rather than export/Import to new existing Thunderbird?
Hi,
Somewhat of a green small fish here.
Apologies if this has been asked and answered many times before.
Currently: wanting to transfer several existing Thunderbird profiles from Old Vista laptop to newer Windows 7 laptop that already has an existing Thunderbird setup with 3 existing profiles.
Export is taking a long time on he old Vista laptop.
Q? Can I copy existing profiles (folders) from old Vista laptop and paste them into the existing profiles folder on the newer Windows 7 laptop?
In summary...
Existing profiles on both old (source) laptop and new (destination) laptop.
Export from old laptop taking too long/Thunderbird hanging.
Q? Copy folders/profiles from old and paste folders/profiles into new?
Many thanks for all of your help in advance :O)
Усі відповіді (7)
Are you wanting to replace the profiles on receiving computer? or do you want the three from old computer to be included, for a total of six profiles? Also, by profile, are you referring to accounts, or to three separate profiles? with your response, I can give steps.
Hi David,
Many thanks for your reply.
> replace the profiles on receiving computer? No :O)
> the three from old computer to be included, for a total of six profiles? Yes :O)
I am not clear on the difference between accounts and profiles.
Many thanks Steve :O)
A profile is a complete configuration, including addressbooks, settings, and all accounts concurrently installed. An account is just a single email account and is a subset of a profile.
many thanks David,
Each laptop both old and new have a single default profile with the old laptop having 4 accounts/profile subsets and the new laptop having 3 accounts/profile subsets.
Kindest regards Steve :O)
Okay, now that we're clear on terminology, how I can I assist? Assuming you want four accounts from old to new, one option is to ignore what is on new PC and simply copy old to new. The other option (harder) is to just move the messages for the fourth account to new pc and setup the account. Assuming you want the old on the new, here are steps:
here is the info in brief steps:
- ensure thunderbird is not running on old machine
- enter %appdata% in search window on task bar and press Enter key
- this should open windows file explorer in Appdata\roaming folder
- highlight the Thunderbird folder and copy to external media
- ensure thunderbird is installed on second computer and NOT running
- enter %appdata% in search window on task bar and press Enter key
- you should be in Appdata\roaming folder , copy&paste the exported Thunderbird folder there. This may prompt to overwrite an existing folder of same name. allow it
- start thunderbird and all should be there
HI,
Many thanks again for the reply.
I want to keep 1 of the accounts on the new and delete 2.
I also want to transfer the 4 accounts from the old to the new.
The new will have the 1 existing (after deleting 2 from the new) and the 4 from the old.
5 in total.
Many thanks.
Here is my suggestion:
- - switch to the old profile that has four accounts - let this be the default
- - now, if the one desired account in the other profile is IMAP, just create it and you're done
- - if that account is POP, then life is more work
- set up the POP account, but DO NOT include password. This is to prevent downloading more messages
- exit thunderbird
- from the now-unused profile, using windows explorer, copy the Mail\<POPaccountname>\folders (inbox, sent, etc) to the same location in the new profile
- start thunderbird and respond to the password prompt to download messages. If all goes well, only new messages will be downloaded, merging with the ones from old profile.
- once you're satisfied, you may delete the unused profile. A suggestion: do a backup once done