help migrating tbird mail to new machine

[eljefino]

had a dual boot linux/xp setup on old computer. Email going back to 2001. Forced a profile folder on shared drive, worked fine in both xp and ubuntu. computer started wheezing, backed up to removeable drive, etc.

Forcing the profile folder on my new machine, the address books, pop server etc work and all my email from 2001-2007 is in there. I can imagine 07 might have been when I first set up tbird and had it import outlook mail-- but I then moved/merged the outlook inbox to the tbird one. I did look for and through any subfolders etc on the new machine that might have mistakenly been created.

I went back to my old computer to see if tbird has an export feature... nope, can't find it... and there is no discernable demarkation in 07 that seperates new vs old. All my 07-10 email is in there as well as 01-07. Near a gig worth so it's a little impractical to forward it all to myself.

Versions of tbird are time-appropriate; 07 for xp, 09 for ubuntu 9.04, and whatever they have (3.x?) for download now in 2010. New machine is XP only for now.

 

[TXMXTruck]

I've migrated Thunderbird mail many times so I'll be glad to help if you get in a bind. I've also run Thunderbird with various flavors of Linux for many years.

There really is no need to export mail out of Thunderbird when you intend to continue using Thunderbird on the new machine. It's really just a matter of copy / paste to the correct folder on the new machine. Note that I say copy / paste, vs. cut / paste, as that way you still have your old copy in the very unlikely event that one of the mbox mail files gets corrupt during the copy over to the other hard drive.

There are two ways to do this. The difficult way is just to copy over that entire hidden folder that contains the mail and the *.js script file. Doing that, you then need to open that script and make a bunch of manual changes. I'll stop right here on this one since it is not worth the extra effort.

Here is what I would do. It may be a little bit more work than you first anticipated, but you will clearly see how it is well worth the extra effort.

1. Start by reorganizing your Thunderbird mail on your old machine. I too have old mail dating back to 2001. Create new inbox and sent folders such as Inbox-2001, Inbox-2002, Sent-2001, etc. Then, you can create filters to tell TBird to move all Inbox mail from after December 2000 to before January 2002 to Inbox 2001, etc.

Why? If you are using just one Inbox folder and one Sent folder for multiple years of e-mail, simple file corruption at any point in time can and will cause you to loose ALL MAIL. How? I had an old laptop running Redhat Linux. Once when downloading new mail, the inbox folder was somehow corrupt. The new mail from that date completely overwrote several years' worth of inbox mail. This is much less common with newer versions of TBird, but why take a risk?

2. On the new machine, I never just copy over that hidden folder where TBird keeps mail. Instead, I set up TBird from scratch on the new machine, adding my various e-mail accounts. Since you should use TBird 3.0.4 on the new machine, set it up to show / use "Local Folders". Google this if you do not know what I am talking about as Local Folders are not shown by default. Now, create your new Inbox-2001, Inbox-2002, etc. folders in your Local Folders sub-directory on the new computer. Then, just copy / paste each MBox file into that folder. You will get a warning that you are over-writing files. That is OK and correct as you are replacing empty files with files containing data.

Finally, when you are done copying and pasting, you will notice that your new folders do not show any mail. That is also correct as you have to click on each folder before TBird will start building a new index for each folder. After a few minutes you will start seeing all mail.

Good luck and ask questions if any of this is unclear.

 

[eljefino]

In the old machine I created a new folder called it inbox0710 and copied my last 3 years worth of messages over to that new folder.

It shows up as a 262 MB inbox710 in /tbird/mail/Local Folders-1/ and has a inbox710.msf with it. Same folder has an Inbox worth 484MB presumably full of all my stuff and an Inbox.msf.

But in tbird/mail/ (named the profile folder
tbird) I also have a Local Folders, mail.adelphia.net, pop-server.roadrunner.com folders. (rr bought adelphia). All have 100s of MBs of data. It appears I need to use Local folders and I thought I just set that up, was one of the things I googled and tried to do on the old machine. Appears I need to merge all that, probably in the old running tbird?

The "import" function is super lame, it is a wizard and doesn't let me manually pick a folder or donor mail client or search the hard drive etc.

 

[TXMXTruck]

Here is the location of my Local Folders in case this helps guide you.

C:\Documents and Settings\(User Name)\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\cl9p7vp2.default\Mail\Local Folders

None of my e-mail accounts (I use around 10 total for business and pleasure) show up in Local Folders. They are in a different subdirectory.

 

[Y_K]

Is it still mbox format?

 

[Colt45ws]

Why would you need to edit the .js if you copy the profile folder over? Only edit is to the profile.ini which is simple. Ive done it 3 or 4 times that and when I was dual booting linux and windows they were sharing the same profile folder.
Like you said, just copy it and if something messes up, you still have the original.

 

[eljefino]

Uninstalled 3, downloaded version 2.0.0.24 (20100228)

all is well.

 

[TXMXTruck]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
Uninstalled 3, downloaded version 2.0.0.24 (20100228)

all is well.


Glad to hear it! Once you have everything great in 2.0.0.24 you can uninstall 2.X and upgrade to 3.X. 3.X will then pick up everything and no need for any additional tweaking. For me, 3.X suits me better and may offer additional features that are useful to you...

 

[TXMXTruck]

Originally Posted By: Y_K
Is it still mbox format?


Yeah, still in mbox format, which I still prefer to Outlook PST files! Some of the original Thunderbird development team now offers PostBox and they have had some minor discussion about moving away from the mbox format, but I doubt it will ever happen. PostBox is a commercial e-mail program based upon Thunderbird 3.X coding.

 

[TXMXTruck]

Originally Posted By: Colt45ws
Why would you need to edit the .js if you copy the profile folder over? Only edit is to the profile.ini which is simple. Ive done it 3 or 4 times that and when I was dual booting linux and windows they were sharing the same profile folder.
Like you said, just copy it and if something messes up, you still have the original.


It depends on exactly what is copied over. I had a time with Linux that I did need to make a bunch of edits in a text editor to my prefs.js file. I think that was probably because I was lazy and copied over the entire profile intact, including mail account settings vs. just moving the mailboxes themselves, which is much more practical. Since TBird choses a random name for the new XXXXX.default directory, it is necessary to edit the prefs.js file to change appropriate entries to the new random directory name if / when copying the entire profile.

 

[Colt45ws]

With a fresh copy of TB I just fire it up once to get it to make the folders then I copy the whole xxxxxx.default dir over and edit the profile.ini to point to the copied dir name instead of the new random one.

 

[eljefino]

^ you'd think that would work but there was something mysterious about tbird 3 that was just not cooperating.

tbird 2 threw all my old email in something called "special folders" from which I could just move them all to inbox... slick.

I just wish it were better at ingesting foreign material. The wizard didn't even try.