Thunderbird-Moving my stuff from old box to new

[Frog]

Is Mozback the way to go, or does the built-in Windows stuff do what I want? Going from an XP machine to a 7.

[Gilligan]

I've heard NOTHING good about the built in windows stuff.  Lots of glitches.

I personally do it all by hand, but then again, that's my business.

[Frog]

You literally move all of your various email folders?

[Gilligan]

I kind of jumped the gun on my answer and directed it towards moving things from old to new in general... your mention of the built in Windows thing caused that.

I haven't moved thunderbird for anyone in a long time... I'd likely either export or see about moving the data folders/files (from where they live on your hard drive(s)) to the new system.  Though this definitely isn't as elegant for windows live mail anymore so it may be the same for Thunderbird.

Simple enough though, I'd just google it.

[inkman996]

You should be able to move everything to a local folder set up on the old rig, then bring that whole set up in to the new rig, point Tbird to that local folder and once it populates all the messages drag them to the server folders. Its a ton of work really and its the one area Tbird seriously lacks in and that is importing exporting from old to new or any direction for that matter. Also I am finding the latest Tbird to be straight garbage compared to its legacy versions. The search system is broken, and message rules do not work right half the time.

[inkman996]

Oh yea Andy the easiest way to get it done is to set up your email IMAP, everything will reside on your server and where ever you have Tbird installed, its only for messages so you still need to export your contacts etc.

[Gilligan]

Oh yea Andy the easiest way to get it done is to set up your email IMAP, everything will reside on your server and where ever you have Tbird installed, its only for messages so you still need to export your contacts etc.

*assuming your server supports the IMAP protocol.

[inkman996]

Oh yea Andy the easiest way to get it done is to set up your email IMAP, everything will reside on your server and where ever you have Tbird installed, its only for messages so you still need to export your contacts etc.

*assuming your server supports the IMAP protocol.

True I forget that. It seems to be more common today with providers.

[Gilligan]

I agree with that, but I have hundreds of emails on a system that doesn't support it.

[inkman996]

I love using local folders, it keeps the server from being over loaded so I dont have to have a million emails on all my devices like my Ipad.


My local folders looks exactly like my server folders, I move everything that is a year or older from the server folder to the local. Then that is always backed up with everything else. I really do not want to trust the server to accidentally purge it self some day and boy that would suck!

[ebscreen]

Mozback is pretty awesome, should do what you want just fine. Manually is pretty easy too, but Mozback transfers all your settings as well.

[Frog]

Mozback is pretty awesome, should do what you want just fine. Manually is pretty easy too, but Mozback transfers all your settings as well.

I did locate all of the info about manually locating and moving the"Profile", but was going to download and check out Mozback as soon as the old machine is back up and running a little later today.
I assume it then seamlessly changes everything related to TB on the new machine.

[ebscreen]

That's correct.

I use it to setup email on new machines (all use the same account) and it's seamless.

If you are on IMAP and don't have anything saved locally you don't even have to bother
with transferring storage. The new account will download it all.

[Frog]

I can assure you that until this morning, I never even heard of IMAP!

[ebscreen]

Unless you have multiple machines or phones (!) checking the same email account, POP is much simpler.