[Novalug] Transferring Thunderbird from one PC to another

Jason P. Thomas jthomasp@gmualumni.org
Mon Jun 14 16:03:26 EDT 2010


On 6/14/2010 2:58 PM, James Ewing Cottrell 3rd wrote:
> Your Life is evidently Too Easy. The Gods have noticed your Arrogance.
> Prepare to be visited by Hoards of Plagues.
>
> But as far as Thunderbird goes, if you click on the Local Folders and
> select View Settings For This Account, you will notice under the Server
> Settings a field named Local Directory. Mine is D:\Documents and
> Settings\JIM\Application
> Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\p2d8mvc9.default\Mail\Local Folders
>
> Evidently, it makes up a random directory (p2d8mvc9.default) to avoid
> conflicts with other Mozilloids. Since I don't want my Real Mailbox on
> the same partition as Windows, I use
> E:\MAIL\JIM\qmuza3l5.slt\Mail\mail.Comcast.NET.
>
> Every time I have to reload Windows I have to reset the Local Directory
> field to find my old mail, but it has never been a problem.
>
> You can safely delete the .msf files...they are simply indices that will
> get rebuilt.
>
>    
>> TIA,
>>
>> Jay
>>      
> JIM
>    
This has worked for me on a number of occasions.  You can save yourself 
the trouble of digging around in Thunderbird's options by editing the 
"profiles.ini" file in the directory right above where you put the 
profile from the old computer.  There is a "path=" line in the ini 
file.  You just change that to the profile you moved and Thunderbird 
should fire right up with all the mail in the appropriate folders.  The 
other suggestion to put the profile contents in the new installation's 
default profile will work nicely, but for myself, I like to keep my 
profile directory the same wherever I put it so I recognize which 
profile is mine.  Since this is for another person and not yourself, 
it's probably a moot point.

--Jay



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