I've been sent round and round and round in circles trying to ask a question, without once ever finding out how to log in. The process is ridiculous.

Hi CrocNZ, If I understand correctly, you're asking how to move your data from an old Windows XP computer to a new Windows 10 computer.

If all your accounts are IMAP, simply setup your accounts on the new computer, and Thunderbird will download your messages and folders from the server.

For anything else, follow these steps:

1. Close Thunderbird.
2. Click the Windows Start button, and select Run.
3. Type %APPDATA% then click OK.
4. Copy the \Thunderbird\ folder to a USB drive (or a cloud drive).
5. On your Windows 10 computer, press +R on the keyboard to open the Run dialog.
6. Type %APPDATA% then click OK.
7. From the USB drive (or a cloud drive), copy the \Thunderbird\ folder to the new computer. If there's already a Thunderbird folder there, choose to replace the current folder.

For a video of more detailed instructions, check out the following video:

I can open profile manager easily (well, I needed no extra help the first time, so there's a fair chance I can do it again!) but I am then lost as to the names of the profiles, whether to create a totally new one, and if so what to call it - and then whether it will successfully log into my mail provider which has just changed. (I've had no luck so far in manually setting a PC to log-in successfully to all four of my mail accounts, I needed remote help from the email provider. Yet on my Android phone it was very easy!) The profile (3.84 GB) from the old XP computer is copied into the new Windows computer in a place where I can find it. In this case it's called eujcspg7.default. The ...\Roaming\Thunderbird folder contains the profiles.ini file which I can edit if needed. And the profile created when installing Thunderbird on the new Windows 10 computer is called z2rx8vrc.default. Is it possible to copy just the large Mail folder from within the old profile into the new?

Hi CrocNZ, I've locked the new thread you created, and am posting my answer here. To reply to a thread either click on the "Mark it as Solved" link or the "This doesn't solve my problem" link in the email notification. The web link to this thread is https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1227660

From your reply, it looks like you followed some other set of instructions than the ones I gave. The ones I gave don't require using the profile manager or editing profiles.ini. ☺

Could you please try the instructions I gave?

Firstly, I was highly annoyed by not being able to find out how to make any sort of response to any of the support forums because I couldn't log on without creating a profile, and there seems to be no process to do this. I kept getting links from one "answered" question to another. And I'm still not quite sure how I finally managed to get to somewhere that gave me the opportunity. That's one topic, not really associated with any difficulties with Thunderbird.

The computer I have my emails on isn't set up with the log-on details for my new email company, and although I tried very hard to copy all the details, that old computer is still not able to connect to the new accounts. So I don't want to just shift all that across to the new one.

But in a way you have answered my question. The first thing you ask is "If all your accounts are IMAP"... I'm sorry, but how do I know that? You assume that we know as much as you do about the language of it... I suspect that the fact that there are 3.8GB of emails sitting on that computer in different folders means that they are not. And all I want is that they are accessible on the new one. Migrating from my original Outlook Express to Thunderbird was quite easy. This seems not to be.

To find out if an account is IMAP or POP3, do the following:

1. Press the Alt key to display the menu bar.
2. Open the Tools menu and select Account Settings.
3. For each account, there is a panel on the left pane called Server Settings. Click on the Server Settings panel for the account you want to check.
4. At the top of the window, check what it says beside "Server Type".

For more info, see Configuration Options for Accounts .

In your previous posts, you didn't mention anything about changing mail providers. Could you provide a more complete story of what your situation is, so we can try provide the most appropriate advice for your situation?

Thank you, maybe it's starting to make sense now.

A more complete story?

Well, I had the same email address for about 20 years. The company that provided my internet and mail was absorbed into other companies and eventually became part of the Vodafone empire. But the process was seamless; no changes to log-in procedure were ever needed.

Last year, Vodafone New Zealand suddenly told its 250,000 email customers that it would no longer be hosting email, and we would all have to make other arrangements. Many, like me, had assumed that our email address would always be protected and things like password resets and, well, our whole online identities for 20 years, commercial and private, were tied to these addresses. It's been a long and frustrating process to try to get all the loose ends, and of course we never will get all of them. Vodafone is continuing to forward our emails. (So far. But that won't last forever.)

So I got a domain name, and a new email host.

Meanwhile Microsoft had killed off Outlook Express without providing a way to migrate it to their newer email clients, and without allowing Outlook Express to be used on their newer versions of Windows. I discovered to my delight that I could shift everything from the Vodafone email system (which I can now see was pop3, thank you!), and Outlook Express, into Thunderbird, which I did with not too much trouble in October last year. I took the opportunity to divide my new email into four different user identities. I back up the profile regularly. I see that the new system is IMAP.

Then my new company merged with another. They were a bit vague about it, but I have recently found out that their instruction that "I didn't need to do anything" was misleading. I now have to create new log-in details for each of my four identities on all my devices.

As well, I had purchased a Windows 10 laptop and I have found out why EVERYBODY told me that it would be a bad experience. I'm hating the thing, much worse than Windows 7, which I've never come to terms with.

So I had to get remote assistance to set up my emails on it. But that still left all the old Vodafone stuff and local folders (over 3 GB) in the Thunderbird profile on my XP computer, which I wish to mothball now. (Great little computer. After all these years I was finally starting to feel comfortable with XP, and more easily bypass its various annoying "features", although I still continue to find little tricks and shortcuts with it. And it's the only computer left that will still run my old CAD program and all my old drawings!)

I've tried very hard to duplicate the new server settings from the Windows 10 email setup into the XP machine, but something is not quite right and I can't use the old computer for email any longer. I don't want to risk migrating a "faulty" profile into the new laptop (which seems to be working fine at the moment).

Meanwhile, setting up my Android phone for the new email log-in was dead easy!

- A long story, I know, but it's complete and maybe all of it is relevant!

If I understand correctly, you want to migrate messages in your Local Folders account on your Windows XP Thunderbird account to your Windows 10 Thunderbird (which you've already installed and set up). In addition, it sounds like both computers already have access to the same IMAP account. Correct?

If so, here's an easy and safe method: Within Thunderbird, copy the messages and folders from your Local Folders account to your IMAP account. They should appear on the IMAP account on your Windows 10 Thunderbird. On your Windows 10 Thunderbird, just move the messages and folders from the IMAP account to Local Folders.

Good idea.

But something is not quite right with the configuration of the XP machine, it won't connect properly to my newest email provider. I will go through the troubleshooting information once again, perhaps I missed some little detail when I tried to duplicate the settings that the remote help had set for me on the new laptop.

Biggest problem, though, might be that it's over 3 GB. That's going to take a very long time to upload on adsl.