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Wed, 07/30/2008 - 16:32 — paul

It is actually quite easy to move a Thunderbird profile to a new machine. All you have to do is:

  1. Copy the profile folder (together with all sub-folders) over to the new machine.
  2. Tell Thunderbird on the new machine where the copied profile is

    3. Thunderbird is now setup on the new machine.But there are problems.

    Most users I help recently had the following problems:

    • Where is the profile folder?
    • How do I tell Thunderbird about my new profile

    Where is the profile folder?
    It varies according to the OS and the user can even move it to a different location. I found that the easiest way to find the profile is to use Account Settings dialog(Windows - Tools, Accounts Settings; Linux - Edit, Account Settings). Goto the Server Settings and find the Local Directory entry.
    This entry shows you where the data for this account is stored locally. An example:\xxx\yyy\zzz\aaa\Mail\bbb - for a pop account.

    The folder \xxx\yyy\zzz\aaa that is above Mail is the profile folder (In IMAP accounts, the folder above ImapMail is the profile account

    Just copy that folder

    How do I tell thunderbird about my new profile?
    You need to run the profile manager. Unfortunately, there is no icon for this. The profile manager is run if you run thunderbird with the -ProfileManager switch.

    In Windows - Start, Run - thunderbird.exe -ProfileManager
    In Linux - run thunderbird -ProfileManager

    You many have to add the path to the program as thunderbird is not always on the path.

    The profile manager will load. To create a new profile:

    1. Click on Create Profile
    2. In the new profile dialog - enter the name of your new profile
    3. Click on Choose Folder and point it to where you have copied the profile folder to
    4. Click Finish to create

    Your profile is created. In the profile manager, select the new profile and click Start to start thunderbird with your copied profile.

Comments

Sun, 01/10/2010 - 01:05 — Anonymous

I thought it couldn't be

I thought it couldn't be done. You say it's easy. What gives? I'll try it.

Tue, 11/04/2008 - 23:37 — Anonymous

Moving T-Bird to new profile

Hi PaulDavid:
Thanks for writing this. I appreciate it. I have used another solution shared by a friend and thought I would share it with you as well. I've used it only once and it was pretty smooth.

Just erase this if it doesn't work for you.
Ken Haugh
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Copy original Thunderbird data

1. Set Windows Explorer to show the hidden files and folders.
2. Navigate to where TB stores their mail folders for this user. In Windows XP, C:\Document and Settings\\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles. In Vista, they might be located in C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\.
3. Copy the original Thunderbird folders to the new location. In our case, we use encrypted folders set to Drive T: so we copy the data to T:\TB_Data or something similar.

Perform New Thunderbird Installation

1. Install Thunderbird but do not import anything when asked. Simply cancel then exit Thunderbird.

Set up new TB profile

1. Navigate to the "profiles.ini" file under the new computer's Thunderbird directory (see above for location).
2. Copy and save the original "profiles.ini" file. Mine saved as "profile-old.ini"
3. Edit the "profiles.ini" file.
1. Set the relative path to "0" (zero).
2. Set the data path to correspond to the new path were the copied data is now located. In our case, it was T:\My Documents\TB_Data.
4. Save the "profile.ini" file.

Set up Thunderbird

1. Open Thunderbird and the old data files should now be in place.
2. Set up the user's email account(s).
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