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Getting my wife's Thunderbird email to show on my install on W11 from W10 data on a HDD

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  • Last reply by david

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I am not sure if this is the correct place to ask my question. Apologies if you think it should be somewhere else in Thunderbird Help.

My old W10 machine crashed in September. I bought a W11 machine in October.

A colleague managed to rescue all my data from the W10 to a HDD.

I installed Thunderbird 143.0.1 to the W11 machine. On running the program it found me and my emails. I hoped it would find my wife's emails too. But no luck so far. Both domain names are the same. I've tried adding the details I have for my wife's email as a new account, but the program goes on and on looking with no result, and no end. I have to unplug the power cord to end it.

I've followed advice from the help pages to Find and restore my Profile without opening Thunderbird. In the process I've deleted the Profile on the W11 install, and substituted the Profile from the W10 install. It was around 8GB. So I assumed that Local Folders and my wife's details would show. Neither of these things occur. My account is shown together with recent emails.

What is happening? How can I get my wife's email account to show? How can I find my archive of emails in Local Folders? Any help gratefully accepted. Thunderbird 101 maybe?

I am not sure if this is the correct place to ask my question. Apologies if you think it should be somewhere else in Thunderbird Help. My old W10 machine crashed in September. I bought a W11 machine in October. A colleague managed to rescue all my data from the W10 to a HDD. I installed Thunderbird 143.0.1 to the W11 machine. On running the program it found me and my emails. I hoped it would find my wife's emails too. But no luck so far. Both domain names are the same. I've tried adding the details I have for my wife's email as a new account, but the program goes on and on looking with no result, and no end. I have to unplug the power cord to end it. I've followed advice from the help pages to Find and restore my Profile without opening Thunderbird. In the process I've deleted the Profile on the W11 install, and substituted the Profile from the W10 install. It was around 8GB. So I assumed that Local Folders and my wife's details would show. Neither of these things occur. My account is shown together with recent emails. What is happening? How can I get my wife's email account to show? How can I find my archive of emails in Local Folders? Any help gratefully accepted. Thunderbird 101 maybe?

Chosen solution

Hi.

Many thanks for the help.

I have the Profile information in the right place. I am able to see the addressbook entries in both email accounts now. And all the Local Folders information in their appropriate place.

I am a bit puzzled as to what the purpose of "Contacts" is, but will come back to ask if I don't find a solution.

Problems Solved.

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All Replies (13)

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The new Account Hub has some bugs - try creating the wife's account the old way:

- go to TB menu > Settings > General > Account hub > uncheck 'Create accounts in the new Account Hub'

- go to TB menu > New Account > Email

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Dear Ed, and TB friends,

Thank you for help. Partial success !

I followed steps in your email: unchecked "Create accounts in the new Account Hub" went to TB menu File > New> Email account (note the difference in the naming, and extra step)

I then got a dialog box which told me the details were recognised, and did I want to proceed. My "Yes" led to a password request, and then a screen which said: "Configuration found for a Microsoft Exchange server" all highlight in Green

I didn't want that server. I have the details for "Configure Manually" which I then clicked, and entered the details on the next page.

The account was then set up. Emails read and unread retrieved. Excellent outcome ! Thus the thanks, and thanks again.

However, I am wanting my Local Folders from the W10 machine which crashed. The folder containing the Profile which has default in the name, and which came from the W10 machine, contains 8.77 GB. I have wondered if the size indicates that this is where my Local Folders reside? The size didn't surprise me as Local Folders (in the W10 machine) contained about a decade of emails sent and received.

If I'm right about the Local Folders, above, how do enable this installation (W11) of TB to find these and integrate them into the installation (is "integration" the right word for what I'm describing? I don't know.)

If I'm not right about the size being an indicator, where would I find the Local Folders ? And then, how would I enable this installation of TB to find these and integrate them, as para. above ?

Thank you friends, in anticipation! W

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Do you have access to the profile that was rescued? If so, you can do this: - locate the Mail\Local Folders folder on the rescued profile. Highlight and copy the contents - click help>troubleshootinginformation - scroll down to 'profile folder' and click 'open folder' - now, EXIT thunderbird - you are now in the active profile, - click to Mail\Local Folders folder and paste the copied folders there - restart thunderbird and the folders should be there.

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Dear David,

Thank you for your response. Appreciated.

I followed the steps outlined in your reply.

I can now see the various folders I wanted in the W11 TB>Troubleshooting information>Profile Folder>Mail> (I recognise the names of the files I created in the past.)

BUT there is no indication of Local Folders in the Inbox page of TB. So I can't get access in the way I've learned to do, clicking on the relevant folder name and finding the email.

Maybe I pasted a level too early? I pasted into Mail. Should I have pasted it to Local Folders?


ALSO: Is this a similar procedure to follow to find and transfer the contact details I and my wife have in address books? I assume there are files from my W10 machine on the rescue HDD, though I don't know the folder name.

Thank you

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Yes, paste to Mail\Local Folders Addressbooks have two names abook.sqlite and history.sqlite with thundebird closed, you can safely copy those two files and paste into the root folder of the pc. you will probably be prompted for overwrite. allow it.

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David, thank you, I copied the relevant files to Local Folders. Now all my emails from 2013 show under "Local Folders" in my email top page.

Addressbooks. I'm sorry but I'm a bit uncertain. I'd appreciate some more help please. Does the following make sense?

On the W10 rescue HDD (as above) I can see abook.squlite and history.sqlite Is it safe to ignore other files with similar names? eg abook.sqlite-shm abook.sqlite-wal and abook.v2.sqlite abook.v3.sqlite as well as files echoing these names, but with "history" as the precursor.

And, You said "you can safely copy those two files and paste into the root folder of the PC" Is the following what you mean by this, for each file >copy the file >in the W11 open Thunderbird >help>troubleshooting information >scroll to "profile folder" and click on "open folder" >Exit Thunderbird >find each file name in the open folder and overwrite by pasting, choosing to "allow" if prompted by overwrite

Thank you for your help. W

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Just the two basic files. Thunderbird accommodates the similarly-named ones. Yes, the default files are already there, so you will be prompted for the overwrite.

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Hi David,

Well. I can see the overwritten files in their place when I use Troubleshooting Information to have a look.

However, when I click on "Contacts" I get a "No message found" The same is true for my wife's email.

I re-booted the machine as well as Thunderbird.

At a loss with this one. W

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I gave you the file names: abook.sqlite and history.sqlite there is no file named contacts

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Chosen Solution

Hi.

Many thanks for the help.

I have the Profile information in the right place. I am able to see the addressbook entries in both email accounts now. And all the Local Folders information in their appropriate place.

I am a bit puzzled as to what the purpose of "Contacts" is, but will come back to ask if I don't find a solution.

Problems Solved.

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I am pleased all is well. Where are you seeing references to 'Contacts'? Can you share a screenshot or in which menu you see it? Thanks

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Here you go !

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That is a user folder, name created by user. If you click it in folder pane, it should show whatever is in the folder.

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