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Thunderbird Installation difficulties on a 2020 imac

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  • Last reply by Toad-Hall

Ernie
Ernie
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I just purchased a 2020 iMac. I have used a Windows machine for about 15 years, and for most of that time I have used Thunderbird for my email. I am very satisfied with Thunderbird, with the exception of being unable to talk to a human about difficulties I occasionally have. In the past I used this question service, and received completely useless answers about how to download all my emails onto an external drive.

At this point in time I am frustrated because I downloaded Thunderbird onto my new iMac. Every time I open Thunderbird on the iMac, it says I have to set up the program. I have done this several times now. How do I get the program to be set up and able to open properly?

And how do I get to talk to a human so I can navigate around the inevitable differences between the prescribed steps to take, and the fact that the computer will inevitably have some differences from what the answer says I should be seeing?

I just purchased a 2020 iMac. I have used a Windows machine for about 15 years, and for most of that time I have used Thunderbird for my email. I am very satisfied with Thunderbird, with the exception of being unable to talk to a human about difficulties I occasionally have. In the past I used this question service, and received completely useless answers about how to download all my emails onto an external drive. At this point in time I am frustrated because I downloaded Thunderbird onto my new iMac. Every time I open Thunderbird on the iMac, it says I have to set up the program. I have done this several times now. How do I get the program to be set up and able to open properly? And how do I get to talk to a human so I can navigate around the inevitable differences between the prescribed steps to take, and the fact that the computer will inevitably have some differences from what the answer says I should be seeing?

All Replies (1)

Toad-Hall
Toad-Hall
  • Top 25 Contributor
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re :And how do I get to talk to a human so I can navigate around the inevitable differences between the prescribed steps to take, and the fact that the computer will inevitably have some differences from what the answer says I should be seeing?

You find a knowledgeable computer technician who understands MAC OS and Thunderbird and lives in your local area and pay for their services.

re :I downloaded Thunderbird onto my new iMac. Did you follow these instructions as it is somewhat different from installing on a Windows OS?

Did you get the download from the official website using download for MAC and choose prefered language?

re :Every time I open Thunderbird on the iMac, it says I have to set up the program.

Does it say 'set up program' or does it ask you to create mail accounts? They are not one and the same thing. It is important to provide actual prompt message or better still post an image showing the problem. Are you sure you are not clicking on the wrong icon because the way you explain it, it sounds like you are repeatedly clicking on the disk image, so perhaps that image showing issue would be helpful.


As a heads up, this is where the default profile is located in a MAC OS. Profile folders are located here:

  • ~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/<Profile name>/

The tilde character (~) refers to the current user's Home folder, so ~/Library is the /Macintosh HD/Users/<username>/Library folder. So when creating a backup, you would exit Thunderbird and then copy the Thunderbirdfolder (located in the 'Library' folder) to an external hard drive. (In that respect it is exactly the same as creating a backup in Windows)

Modified by Toad-Hall