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Fresh TBird Install, clean new profile folder. How to get old contacts and saved email?

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  • Last reply by OldRacer

OldRacer
OldRacer
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I have been using TBird for at least 10 years. On occasions where I have installed it on new machines I have simply copied the whole profile folder from the old machine and pointed the new installation to it. Over the years, though the profile folder and prefs.js have gotten pretty junked up. One symptom is that I cannot add a second gmail account; the setup grumbles that the server name is already in use (or something like that). Other people have not had this problem.

Another symptom is just the junk in prefs.js (69kb), like: user_pref("mail.server.server6.hostname", "imap.gmail.com"); Server Six?!!?? This is probably left over from a failed attempt to add a second gmail account. I have only two email identites, one for my private domain and one at Gmail.

So ... what I would like to do is to set up a fresh installation, fresh profile folder, clean prefs.js, but then to move my existing contacts and stored emails into the new profile folder. TBird appears to be using SQLITE. Can I just copy the relevant database folders? If so, what are the files I need to move?

I have been using TBird for at least 10 years. On occasions where I have installed it on new machines I have simply copied the whole profile folder from the old machine and pointed the new installation to it. Over the years, though the profile folder and prefs.js have gotten pretty junked up. One symptom is that I cannot add a second gmail account; the setup grumbles that the server name is already in use (or something like that). Other people have not had this problem. Another symptom is just the junk in prefs.js (69kb), like: user_pref("mail.server.server6.hostname", "imap.gmail.com"); Server Six?!!?? This is probably left over from a failed attempt to add a second gmail account. I have only two email identites, one for my private domain and one at Gmail. So ... what I would like to do is to set up a fresh installation, fresh profile folder, clean prefs.js, but then to move my existing contacts and stored emails into the new profile folder. TBird appears to be using SQLITE. Can I just copy the relevant database folders? If so, what are the files I need to move?

Chosen solution

The default address books abook.mab (Personal Address Book) and history.mab (Collected Addresses) can be copied between profiles. Other address books can also be transferred, most easily by exporting in LDIF format from the old profile and importing in the new profile. If your address books are in sqlite format, e.g. abook.sqlite, you must be using TB beta, not the release version.

To copy stored local mail, copy the mbox files - files with no extension, named after mail folders - from Mail/<popserver>, ImapMail/<imapserver> and Mail/Local Folders of the old profile to Mail/Local Folders of the new profile.

Help/Troubleshooting, about:profiles to create and manage profiles, or thunderbird.exe -p from the command line.

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sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 25 Contributor
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Chosen Solution

The default address books abook.mab (Personal Address Book) and history.mab (Collected Addresses) can be copied between profiles. Other address books can also be transferred, most easily by exporting in LDIF format from the old profile and importing in the new profile. If your address books are in sqlite format, e.g. abook.sqlite, you must be using TB beta, not the release version.

To copy stored local mail, copy the mbox files - files with no extension, named after mail folders - from Mail/<popserver>, ImapMail/<imapserver> and Mail/Local Folders of the old profile to Mail/Local Folders of the new profile.

Help/Troubleshooting, about:profiles to create and manage profiles, or thunderbird.exe -p from the command line.

OldRacer
OldRacer Question owner
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Thanks very much. I will try that in a few days and mark this "solved" if it works. Re SQLite I just saw the files in the profiles folder. The folders and files you mention are there too. After looking, I see that many of the SQLite files have quite old dates -- even back to 2011. So that is probably some of the detritus left over from old installations.